


The Act of Living and Survival

by jedimastermads



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Mild Blood, Mild Language, Other, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, violence toward the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6304672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedimastermads/pseuds/jedimastermads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The newest night guard of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria has just been hired. He picks up where over a dozen have left off, woefully ignorant of the horrors that hide behind the stroke of midnight. Armed with nothing but his sanity, the company-issued tablet, and possibly the help of a very sassy pizzeria hostess, it'll take everything in him to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday Morning

**MONDAY MORNING**

At eight in the morning on a Monday, the only places that were busy were schools. Children would be coming into their respective classrooms, taking their seats; possibly taking out the homework they had over the weekend. They would be talking amongst themselves, laughing, retelling what they did on their days off. The teacher is taking another long drink of coffee - lukewarm and much too strong for their taste, but they can't be picky, considering they got it from the teacher's lounge - mentally preparing themselves for the day.  
Schools and Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria have one defining common factor: children.  
Both businesses _thrive_ on children. They're both meant to be educational, but fun. In most cases, they're both supposed to be fun for the whole family, filled with activities and interactive games fit for children and adults alike. Though sometimes both of places make mistakes - and often those mistakes are swept under the rug and forgotten about after a few months, after a brand renovation or a giveaway of some kind - they're still universally hailed as a safe place.  
However, the most significant difference between Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria and schools is that, at eight in the morning on a Monday, schools are actually busy.  
That was why Charlotte was drawing on the reservation list whiteboard rather than working, little bear heads and balloons gracing the side margins. She wasn't paying attention to the gold-painted front double-doors of the pizzeria, deciding to devote her morning shift to doodling on the podium’s dry-erase board until she switched out with her co-worker Patricia at eleven, who was currently wiping down tables and setting up party hats in the dining hall.

One of the two doors opened and someone walked inside, confident footsteps muffled by the dark red, late-eighties shag carpet gracing the entranceway. When the person approached the podium and stopped in front of it, it took her a moment to register that someone else was there, only catching sight of them when she had to look up to get a few strands of her long dark hair out of her line of vision.  
It was a boy, not much older than her, with a head of fluffy dark hair and bright brown eyes. He was dressed up fairly formally, a nice forest green button-up and black tie paired with black slacks and shiny shoes. The sight made Charlotte stifle a snort. "Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's," she greeted, capping the dry-erase marker and standing up, finding him to be just a bit taller. "Can I help you?" She looked him over once more, seeing the folder under his arm. Was he an intern from somewhere? What if he was here to see Manny and finally close them down? _Took 'em long enough_ , she thought pessimistically. "I'm here for the job interview?" _Oh?_ That made her raise a thin eyebrow. She didn't know they were hiring more floor attendants. "I saw the listing on Craigslist for a night shift security guard? It said to just come in-" Immediately her brain put the boy on mute, all ready concluding that he was a waste of time. Crossing her arms over her chest stopped him all together, her change in demeanor making him go sheepish. The boy thought he had done something wrong. _He did. He showed up to be the new night guard._ "I'll go get Manny." Charlotte turned away from the stranger without another word and went to go get her manager. He watched her cross the floor, passing one of her co-workers, a pretty blonde girl setting up birthday hats, who smiled cheerfully her way before returning to work.  
A few silent moments passed, only broken by the noises of a few arcade cabinets the restaurant had lined up against one of the far walls. When he caught sight of the familiar dark-haired girl again she still had a distasteful look on her face, but her arms were uncrossed, and someone was following behind her. He was an older fellow, but not by much, by the looks of it - he had a bit of weight him as well, but he was working as a pizzeria. Other than that though, he couldn't have been more than forty, and even that was pushing it. _He must be the manager._  
As Charlotte took her position again and went back to doodling on her whiteboard, sufficiently ending their interaction, the manager approached him, smiling warmly and extending a hand.  
"Manny."  
"Mark." He took Manny's hand and shook it, smiling back. "Nice to meet you."

Manny unhooked the red rope and officially let him inside the restaurant. They made small talk as they walked to a nearby dining table about the weather and how shiny Mark's shoes were. Once they sat, they got right to business. The questions were all standard, if not a bit vague. But he answered them accordingly, explaining his school situation. "I only need something part-time," he told the manager. "I don't have night classes, so this would be perfect for me." He went on to talk about his major - animation - with a humble tone and a small smile. He had learned in high school a bunch of interviewing tips so as not to come off as too arrogant or shy, balancing confidence with the willingness to learn. Plus, talking to Manny was easy - he was a very open man, chuckling at his bad jokes and nodding along to reassure him he was paying attention.  
After Mark had shown him his resume and references - he had decided to not pull out the letter of recommendation, seeing as this was just a security guard position - it was quiet for a moment. "You know, this is just minimum-wage, Mark," Manny explained, a bit of hesitation in his voice. "In all honesty, you're way overqualified for a position here." He chuckled a little, but continued. "But, we'd love to have you." Looking up at the boy made him smile, seeing his face relieved and proud and joyful all at once. They both stood. "When can you start?" Manny asked. "I can start tonight, after class." He nodded. "Perfect." They shook hands again.  
They walked back toward the entrance of the restaurant. "Charlotte!" The girl at the podium stood up at attention, looking over her shoulder at the two gentlemen walking toward her. "I'd like to introduce you to our new night guard, Mark." She turned to them, crossing her arms over her chest, seemingly her default stance. "We've met." She looked at him, and he looked at her, sheepishly grinning back. "I want you to give him a tour of the place. Introduce him to everyone. Show him Freddy and the rest of the cast. The whole nine yards." As Manny explained what she was to do, her face contorted into a look of distain and disgust. He gave her a look back - one of those you do it or you can kiss your job goodbye sort of looks - and she huffed. "Follow me." Mark tagged along right behind her, keeping an easy pace.

With an overly-grand gesture, she directed his attention to the room they were in. "This is our main floor. We've got the dining area on that side-" She pointed to the tables, clean and set up with plates, party hats, and plastic silverware. "-and the registers on that side." With her other hand she pointed to a large counter-like area topped with a pair of registers; all set right in front of a small window. Charlotte began moving again, toward the register, which was occupied by the blonde he noticed earlier. "Right behind it is the kitchen, obviously for ordering purposes." They came to the counter, and the blonde smiled wide. "Hey, Charlie," she greeted. "Hey, new guy." That earned a little chuckle. "Mark." She nodded once. "Mark, Patricia. Patricia, Mark. She was the 'new kid' before you." The blonde nodded once, still smiling. "Yep. About to hit my two-month anniversary in a few weeks." There was a snort from the other girl. "If we don't get shut down first." That made all three of them laugh, though Mark didn't quite know why he was laughing, not knowing why she'd joke about that or why it was funny.  
"Hey, uh, Cia, you wanna take over for me?" Charlotte suddenly asked, her tone much kinder than the ones he’d heard used so far. "I can cover for you on register." Patricia perked up, blue eyes shining. "Sure!" She hopped over the counter instead of going around, solid black shoes not even brushing the surface. "Follow me. I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew."  
The rest of his inaugural tour was spent under the direction of Patricia. She was thorough in explaining, throwing in small facts about the pizzeria into her monologues. He was kept entertained by her spiels, the bits of trivia making him curious. "So, you said you've only been working here a couple months?" He prompted as they walked out the bathrooms and headed to the main stage. “Uh-huh.” She nodded. "How long has Charlotte been working here?" At the mention of the other girl, his guide smiled. "Three and a half years. She's the second-longest working employee, right behind Steven. You'll meet him a little later." He nodded back.  
"And here they are! Our main attraction." Gesturing to the robotic trio on stage, she laughed a little. "May I introduce to you, Bonnie Bunny, Chica Chick, and Freddy Fazbear!" Mark took a good look up at the three animals.  
They were all fairly worn from decades of entertaining, their once-bright colors faded and their fur a bit lackluster. They were over six feet tall, all three of them, with mouths just slightly agape as if stopped mid-sentence. He couldn't see inside their mouths, but he knew they were designed that way, no doubt the inside shrouded by black felt. Bonnie carried a guitar, Freddy held a microphone, and Chica was on keyboard. "They're all connected to the same power switch, which is over by the backstage area. C'mon. I'll show you." She gestured for him to follow and, after one last glance at the animatronics, he did.  
After showing him the power switch to the stage, turning it on briefly to show him just how they started up, the pair entered backstage. His guide walked in no problem, but he lingered in the doorway, making her turn and look at him. "It's okay. Nothing's gonna bite you." She laughed a bit and waved him in encouragingly; he laughed weakly with her. Walking inside, he found the room just a notch warmer than the rest of the restaurant and much smaller than most of the other rooms. On the walls hung replacement faces for the animatronics, the shadowy corners held stripped-down old exoskeletons, and a large rectangular table in the center of the room had half a robotic body on top of it. All of it made his heart beat wildly, thoroughly creeping him out. "A lot of this stuff is used for spare parts when something goes wrong with the main three," she explained. "Hence all the naked robots." As he continued to take in his surroundings, she made her way back to the door. She patted him on the arm and walked out, a kind gesture that brought him back to reality, waiting eagerly for him to follow. "C'mon, you've still gotta meet Foxy!"

Meeting Foxy brought the two of them in front of a curtained-off stage area significantly smaller than the main stage, with an **OUT OF ORDER** sign hanging from the sign's railing. "So, this is Foxy." Patricia pulled back the purple starry curtains, revealing the animatronic hidden behind them. He was fairly tall as well, with an ear-to-ear grin spread across his long maroon muzzle. One of his paws was a hook, and one of his legs was fully robotic, not covered in any sort of fur. "You can see he's being worked on. Or _was_ being worked on." Mark furrowed his brows and looked at her. "We've been on the brink of foreclosure for months now. A lot of stuff isn't really up-to-par here. Or, okay, we're up on health and safety codes, but some stuff, like Foxy-" She shook her head and let the curtains drop. He understood - the officials were trying to run them out by letting everything fall to pieces before having to send someone out to evict them.  
"I think that about does it..." She trailed off, going through her mental checklist. "Yeah. You'll meet Steven later on tonight. He'll teach you how to clock in and out, and show you how to use the cameras and stuff." She nodded, smiling proudly, no doubt feeling accomplished. "Do you have any questions?" Mark hesitated, which made the girl giggle. He did have questions, but they weren't exactly about the job. "It's about Charlie, isn't it?" He nodded, a little embarrassed. "What's your question?" Though she didn't seem like one to gossip, Patricia seemed to really like talking about her co-worker, and because he was so curious, he didn't see a problem with that. "I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but why is she so guarded?" His question made her blonde brows scrunch together. "You can't tell me you didn’t see it too. She kept giving me the cold shoulder. She handed me off to you without a second thought. I don't get it." It made him feel bad, and half of him hoped he wouldn't have to deal with the other girl anymore. However the other half of him, the half that wanted to appeal to everyone so desperately, wanted to show her that he was different. "I don't know, honestly," she responded after a moment. "I'm really sorry you've been getting the whole 'ice queen' routine from her. She does that to people sometimes." Her face showed genuine guilt at both what happened and her lack of words. "C'mon, I'll walk you out."

Cutting through the rows of dining tables, the two of them headed back to the front entrance, where they found Manny waiting for the two of them. When he saw Patricia instead of Charlotte, his smile faltered, but only for a moment. Seeing how content and excited Mark looked made it return in a flash. "Good tour?" Mark nodded. "Good. We'll see you tonight." They shook hands once last time, and with a wave from the blonde, the new night guard headed out.  
A head of wavy black hair appeared at the manager's side and he looked over to see Charlotte, arms crossed, eyes on the doors. "He's not gonna make it a week," she said. Manny looked to the doors too, the image of a confident young man in a forest green button-up walking out of his restaurant still fresh in his mind. _No. He can do it. I believe in him. That boy will be our best night guard yet. He'll make it._ "He's too good to last a week." He looked over at her, recognizing that tone of voice. It was sorry, guilty; the tone he’d used on his youngest daughter before when she wanted to grow wings to fly or a fin to swim. It was the tone of voice people used when they knew they had to break the harsh truth to someone. It made his stomach do a flip. Mark was too good to last the week. He was a kind, smart, well-raised young man. He was either going to go insane, or he was going to die.  
Manny realized, just then, that he made a grave mistake.


	2. Monday Night

**MONDAY NIGHT**

At eleven o'clock on the dot, Mark walked through the doors of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria dressed in a casual pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. The restaurant was all but empty, with just a few of the evening crew members finishing the nightly cleaning. At the greeter's podium was Patricia, who smiled widely at the sight of him. "Hey new guy," she said cheerfully, unhooking the red rope and letting him through. "You ready for your first night?" Without even a second thought she left her front post, becoming his guide to the security office. "I'm honestly kind of nervous," he said, a little self-conscious. She put her hand on his arm. "Don't be! You'll do great." Her confidence in him made the nervousness wear away just a bit.  
They walked across the main floor together, passing the time by talking about movies. It was a comfortable subject for him, one he could simply slip into, no matter the genre. Thankfully she was a huge fan of animation just like him, and that became the main subject of their conversation until they reached the back of the dining area. From there, they trekked through a black-and-white tiled hallway, walls adorned with posters and articles advertising and praising the restaurant. Despite wanting to stop and look them over, he didn't have time, his guide walking on without him; he caught up quickly, trying to play it off, smiling when she looked back at him.  
They reached the end of the hallway and a seemingly blank part of the wall. Patricia held up a slim finger as if to say, _wait and see what happens_ , and knocked on the wall a few times, the echo hollowly reverberating through the wall. A beat passed before the wall swung inward, earning a little noise of surprise out of Mark. It was a door, and in its doorway was the day security guard. He was on the taller side, but younger, with dark skin and darker green eyes. But his smile was soft and bright, his demeanor open and welcoming. "Hey Steven." Patricia waved. "This is Mark." Mark waved a little too. "The new night guard." Steven held out his hand, and he took it, shaking it firmly. "Great to meet you. C'mon in." He looked back at her, expecting her to lead the way. "Oh, no, I can't," she said, putting her hands up. "Management said that room is for security only." She laughed a little. "Steven’s your guide from here on out. Good luck."  
And with that, Patricia headed back the way they came.  
"All right," Steven said with a friendly smile. "Well, c'mon in. I'll show you the ropes." He led Mark inside to the relatively small security office. Inside, against the front wall, was a metal office desk whose legs were tangled in wires. The wall above the desk was plastered in posters and children's drawings, gifts given to the employees and day guards. There was a rolling chair pulled away from it, a tablet sitting in its seat. "Welcome to your office." He continued to look around. There were two large metal doorways on each side of the office leading out to hallways, which made him curious. "Doors?" He prompted, pointing to them. "Ah." The other boy looked at them. "Yeah. They were installed in the eighties, during the Cold War. They were installed as protection against the threat of nuclear fallout."  
"And the tablet?" Steven walked over and picked up the piece of equipment from the chair, offering Mark the seat. He took it, finding it a fairly comfy little chair. "I was expecting, y'know, little black-and-white TV screens." That made the both of them chuckle. "Nah. We got this installed right before they excommunicated us from the restaurant chain." _Right. Patricia talked about that this morning._ "I heard. They're basically trying to run you out before having to evict you." _**Us.** They're trying to run **us** out. You're part of the family now._ The thought made him bite back a smile. The other boy nodded. "Yeah. But Manny's not going to let it go unless they pry it out of his hands. His kids, his nieces and nephews, they all had their parties here. It's practically him and his family’s second home."

There was a moment of silence while Steven fiddled with the tablet. "Okay, so here's how it works…" It didn't take Mark long to grasp how the camera system operated. "… Just tap the room that you want to see, and the screen will switch over." The graphics were in black-and-white, despite the advanced technology; there was also a second or two lag between camera changes, which mildly amused him. "And there's also the matter of the hall lights." Taking the chair by the headrest, Steven rolled Mark over to a metal doorway, where a panel with a set of two buttons, one white and one red, was within arms-reach. "It does get pretty dark at night. So you might need these." He pressed the white button and a sterile white light lit up the outside hallway, a faint buzzing sound being emitted from the light socket. "Right under that is the button to close the door." That was the one lit up red. He pressed it and down the metal door slid with a solid _thunk_. He pressed it again, and it reopened.  
"And about the power…" Steven motioned to the tablet, where, in its bottom left corner, a percentage and 'Power Usage' meter showed. "Since we're basically running on borrowed time here, we only have a certain amount of power after midnight. Everything turns off to conserve power and avoid high electric bills. So once the clock strikes midnight, the only things that're gonna work are the cameras, that tablet, and the door modules." He stopped short as if he wanted to say more, but switched subjects instead. It required him to open one of the desk drawers and pull out a small box filled with cassette tapes and what looked like an old voicemail machine. He set it on the desktop. "These are for you." Mark furrowed his brows and looked up at Steven. "Management says they're a requirement for all night guards to listen to. They're labeled and everything, so just pop 'em into the machine and press play." The thought of cassette tapes meant just for him both excited him and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.  
While his imagination went wild with thoughts of what was on the tapes, there was a knock from outside of the hidden door. Steven crossed the small space and opened the door to see Charlotte with backpack slung over her back. "Closing time," she told the both of them. Her voice snapped Mark out of his thoughts, making him turn and wave just a bit at her. "You gonna be okay?" Steven asked, looking back at him, and he nodded back. "It'll be a breeze." The comment made the girl roll her eyes and start to turn away. "I'm leaving, Steven. I'll lock you in if you don't hurry up." That made the boy cringe. "All right, I'm coming. See ya Mark. And good luck." Steven exited the room quickly, leaving Charlotte a few steps behind. Just as he turned on the tablet and began to fiddle with it, he heard a voice. "Hey." Mark looked up, looking Charlotte over. Though still in the bright orange uniform shirt and brown slacks, she seemed much softer, face almost apologetic. "See you tomorrow?" He smiled a little and nodded. "Yeah. See you tomorrow." There was a hint of a smile on her lips as she turned away, shutting the door behind her.

Midnight was marked by the sound of the generators shutting down. With a few loud shudders and the fading sound of movement, everything went dim and dark. The sudden switch from full brightness to nothing but the button lights and tablet screen made him jump, then laugh at himself for being so scared. He checked the screen one last time before putting it to sleep – fully charged at one hundred percent.  
Mark would readily admit that he wasn't afraid - darkness wasn't a fear he harbored as a child. It just took a moment for his eyes to get adjusted, and when they did, he scooted to the desk, tablet in his lap, and pulled the voicemail machine and the cassette tape labeled **'Night One'** in thick black letters in front of him. After a moment of fumbling with the machine and tape, he got it out and open, got the cassette placed right-side-up, and got it shut again; he pressed the bright red 'play' button.  
The first thing on the tape was the ringing of a phone. There was an audible click as it switched over to record the voice message.  
_"Hello hello? Uh, I just wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night..."_  
The message instantly and completely hypnotized Mark. As the man on the voicemail read the official legal spiel out loud to him - very quickly skimming through the part about missing persons’ reports and bleaching the floors – the goosebumps returned, rippling over his tan skin. _“Now that might sound bad, I know, but there's really nothing to worry about…”_ He scoffed, a sassy remark on the tip of his tongue. There was a brief pause in the message, giving him a chance to check on the cameras. Waking the tablet, he saw that he was at ninety-six percent, and flipped to the main stage’s camera.  
Mark’s stomach did a violent flip. _“Now, the animatronics do tend to get a bit quirky at night…”_  
Bonnie was _gone_. The bright purple bunny was no longer on stage, her guitar carefully placed against the stage’s back wall. Where could she have gone? How did she move? There was no one else here in the restaurant. He looked up at the voicemail machine, listening to it for a moment. _“… So, just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit. Uh, they're left in some kind of free roaming mode at night. Uh... Something about their servos locking up if they get turned off for too long.”_ That made even less sense to him. Why did they move around at night and not during the day? That would be an awesome gimmick for the pizzeria to draw in customers. He kept listening, his stomach churning uncomfortably. _“Uh, they used to be allowed to walk around during the day too. But then there was The Bite of '87. Yeah. I-It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?”_  
“What?” He shouted out loud, a loud curse following. Someone got bit? Did they die? Why did they get bit? _What did I sign up for?_  
As he flipped through the cameras to try and find Bonnie, he listened as the man on the message went on, occasionally looking at the time in the top corner of the tablet and carefully watching his reserved power. _“… The only_ real _risk to you as a night watchman here, if any, is the fact that these characters, uh, if they happen to see you after hours, probably won't recognize you as a person.”_ What would they think he was then? Another robot? _“They'll most likely see you as a metal endoskeleton without its costume on.” Nailed it_ , he thought to himself. _“Now since that's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, they'll probably try to... forcefully stuff you inside a Freddy Fazbear suit.”_  
Mark flipped from the main lobby to the backstage area and yelped loudly. He found Bonnie standing in the middle of the room, staring right at the camera. “O-Okay! Hi, Bonnie,” he said shakily to no one in particular. “Good to see you, buddy. How you doin’?” _Please don’t stuff me in a suit,_ he pleaded in his head. Realizing talking actually steadied his nerves a bit, he decided to go with it. The voicemail man caught his attention with his goodbye. _“I’ll chat with you tomorrow. Uh, check those cameras, and remember to close the doors only if absolutely necessary. Gotta conserve power. Alright, good night.”_  
And with that, he was alone in the quiet again. “Goodnight,” he said softly, checking the tablet again, finding Bonnie still backstage and the other two animatronics still on the main stage. “I can do this. It’s-" He looked to the corner for the time. “-Two in the morning. Just gotta last four more hours. And I’m at, like, eighty-nine percent. It’s good! It’s fine…” It was very far from fine, but he was trying really hard to convince himself it was all alright.  
As time ticked on, he kept reassuring himself that it was going to be okay out loud, doing all he could to remain in high spirits. He kept an eye on all of the animatronics, flipping between the main stage, Pirate Cove, and backstage where Bonnie was hiding, kept on his toes by the lingering question - What’s going to happen now?  
The clock struck four in the morning. _Two more hours and I’m home free!_ he realized with a jolt of relief. Just as he begun to relax, the camera feeds turned to black static, and from the tablet came the fuzzy and familiar sound to accompany it. “Wh-What? No! Give me back my-” The feed returned then, cutting off his plea, backstage now empty. “Where’s Bonnie?” he loudly whispered, struck by terror. “Where did she go?” Mark flipped through the cameras quickly, realizing with a quiet “oh no” that another animatronic had left the stage. Chica was nowhere to be seen, her keyboard moved to the side. “Oh no… Chica…” Now he had two killer robots to find, with two hours still to go and eighty percent on his tablet. Frantically tapping through the camera feeds, he found the chicken at the bathroom entrance, his heart almost stopping. Thankfully she wasn’t looking at the cameras like her counterpart had been earlier, but the creepy factor was still heavily present. “Okay, just- Just stay there!” he commanded, even though the robotic bird couldn’t hear him. Quickly he found Bonnie, who was back in the main dining area, just across from the camera. He couldn’t see anything other than a silhouette of her. Good enough.  
The battery was slowly draining away as he looked at the tablet, going from eighty percent even to seventy-six. He clicked it into sleep mode and sat back. To calm himself down, Mark quieted his breathing and strained to hear any sort of movement outside the hallway doors, any sort of sign that they were moving. It was loud; deafening even - he didn't want to make a sound and attract their attention, but he couldn't stand just how suffocating the dark had become.  
A loud clattering erupted from the right hallway, making him jump violently. He turned on the tablet and flicked through the cameras quickly, finding Bonnie backstage again, and Chica... He couldn't see Chica. _Where’s Chica?_ The noise answered his question, it resembling pots and pans banging together. The kitchen maybe? He clicked over to the kitchen camera, which was black; the words **‘Video out - Audio only’** were written across the top of the screen. Did she do that? Or was it like that this whole time? He couldn't remember. It was the first time he heard someone in the kitchen. There was another clatter, making him panic, hit the sleep mode button on the tablet, toss it onto the desk, and wheel over to the right side of the room. With a hard slap, he pressed the red button, the metal door sliding shut.  
Time and battery were the first things he thought of the moment the door hit the ground and he looked at reinforced metal instead of blackness. Could he afford this for the remainder of his shift? Mark wheeled back over to his desk. Seventy-one percent and within the five o'clock hour? _Not bad._ The decision to keep the door shut for the rest of the night wasn’t going to be as hard as he thought. He checked the tablet for Bonnie once more, finding her back near the main stage, and Chica still in the kitchen, since she wasn't to be seen anywhere else.  
Once the clock struck six, a chiming rang through the small tablet speaker and a matching louder one through the rest of the restaurant. The lights slowly flickered on, one by one, the metal door automatically slid up, and the sound of the arcade machines turning on echoed back to meet him. Finishing off the night at seventy percent even, he set the tablet down on the desktop, leaned back in his chair, and shakily drew in a breath. Just over the chimes he could hear the loud footsteps of the animatronics going back onto the stage. Six single bells chimed to mark the hour, Mark silently counting them. Once it went quiet again, he slowly stood, finding his legs shaking a bit. _You survived. You're here, you're breathing, you're alive,_ he repeated to himself reassuringly. _No one's going to get you, nothing is after you, you're safe now._  
  
Then there was a knock at the door.


	3. Tuesday Morning

**TUESDAY MORNING**

_Oh my god, I'm going to die._  
Mark stood looking at the door that he walked through just six hours ago, the door he walked through that tossed him into what he could only describe as a living nightmare, brown eyes wide and frightened. He felt like a trapped animal. The animatronics, they knew about the hidden door? Did Bonnie or Chica come back to finish him off? Did they both-  
Another knock broke his train of thought, this one more heavy and pressing. He swallowed the rising bile in his throat and slowly approached the door, reaching out and taking the knob in his hand. With his heart beating hard against his ribcage, Mark popped the door open and peeked out through the crack, seeing a narrowed hazel eye and a look of confusion mixed with annoyance on a diamond-shaped face. _Charlotte._  
He flung the door open and almost fell out of the doorway toward her, happier than he had ever been to see another human being. The sudden gesture made her step back a bit and raise an eyebrow. "Morning?" It was more a question than a greeting. Her voice relieved him even further, making his heart swell and the temptation to hug her rise. He also had a strong desire to cry, to be held while he sobbed violently into someone's shoulder out of relief that he was alive. "Hey," he managed out, voice cracking just slightly. "Good to see you." That made her raise both her eyebrows. "Okay..." It took her a moment to come up with what to say next. "Do you need me to go get your papers?" He raised his eyebrows too. "Papers?" His question back took her by surprise. For a moment the two of them just stood there looking at each other, trying to gauge what exactly the other was trying to get at. "Resignation papers. You're... Not quitting?" He shook his head automatically. "No. I'm- I'm not quitting." The response surprised both of them. Why did I just say that? Taking one last look at him, almost pitifully, she turned and began to walk away. Not wanting to be anywhere near the security office anymore, Mark followed his co-worker through the hallway, glancing at the posters and newspaper articles. He decided to stop, figuring that now was a good time to finally get a good look at them.  
They were very typical clippings praising the renovations that they had gone through at one point. Some talked about the new show the animatronics put on, saying it was adorable and fun for the whole family, and some were interviews answered by Manny. The clippings broke up a series of posters pasted along the wall, colorful advertisements declaring **CELEBRATE!** and **LET’S PARTY!** in big white and yellow letters, Freddy and his friends pictured happily underneath. _So, nothing special,_ he concluded with a little shrug. He caught up with Charlotte, who he found had made her way into the kitchen. A stab of fear sliced through him as he reached the open doorway, remembering that Chica was in there less than an hour ago. But once his eyes landed on the girl, who was making a bee-line for the coffee machine, he was strangely calmed, and walked inside.

It was a very run-of-the-mill restaurant kitchen. White walls, white tiles, clean stainless steel countertops. There were a few ovens made of weathered brick, and the little serving window that looked out into the empty main lobby. As he stood on one side of the room, she was on the other, pulling out the supplies needed to make coffee. Above her, in the nearest corner, was the boxy old-fashioned camera. "Hey," he said. "You know this camera's broken right?" She glanced up at it too. "That I didn't," she replied dismissingly, going back to working on preparing her coffee. "You should talk to Manny about it." Was it considered a safety violation if the camera was out? He couldn’t help but wonder.  
"Hey." He looked down from the camera to Charlotte, who was looking at him, white coffee cup in hand. She actually looked concerned, features softened by worry. It made his heart ache and the desire to cry return. "You okay?" _No, I've just been through one of the scariest nights of my life, and I’m pretty sure I agreed to do it again,_ he wanted to say while letting the tears fall and fear soak his words. But how would the story of killer animatronics hold up? "Yeah, I'm... I'm good. Thanks." Not well, he decided. A moment of silence passed between them. "Uhm, do you want some coffee, or something? You look like you've seen a ghost." His eyes landed on the pot of coffee, finished and steaming fresh. Try murderous animatronics. “I uhm, I take mine with hazelnut creamer, but, I don't know, I think we have, like, vanilla and stuff in the-"  
"I'm okay." She stopped. "I think I just need to get home. Get some sleep." A look of genuine hurt crossed her face. "But, thank you. I really appreciate the offer." He ran a hand through his hair, watching her face go from soft and concerned to cold and dismissive. "It's fine. Whatever." She started to turn away, playing it off as nonchalantly as she could. That made his heart ache even more; it also made him wonder how many friends she really had. It didn't come off like many - she was very closed-off, and it didn't seem like she was one to go chasing after things. She wasn't a fighter of one-sided fights, even if she knew how to with everything she had. These thoughts only made him want to be her friend more.  
"Uhm, y'know what? I'll take a cup of coffee, actually." She looked over at him, first passively, then raising her eyebrows when she realized he was serious. He began to walk over to the fridge. "You said there was vanilla creamer in the fridge?" There was that ghost of a smile on her face again. Putting her coffee cup down, she helped get Mark situated with his own cup - vanilla creamer, three sugar packets, and a clean white mug - and hopped on the counter when they were finished, taking her mug back in her hands. He stood next to her, leaning up against the opposite countertop. "So, how was your night?" she asked, trying to keep the conversation going. He hesitated. "Uhm, not bad." He glanced over at her. "Quiet." She nodded once. "That's expected." They both took a drink of their coffee. "Didn't get scared at all, did you?" she asked, smirking over at him. He laughed weakly. "Nah, not really." He looked down at his coffee before letting the silence punctuate the conversation.

After a few more sips of coffee, Charlotte spoke up again. "Sorry. I didn't know you were afraid of the dark." He looked at her, finding her staring down at her coffee cup. "I didn't mean to upset you." He furrowed his brows. "You didn't upset me. You just-" He looked away. "I know that kind of laugh. I use that laugh when people say stuff that actually hurts me," she said, looking over at him. "You didn't upset me, Charlotte," he repeated. There's just so much I want to tell you. He wanted to bare all to her, this girl who less than twenty-four hours ago he had wished he would never have to deal with again. Because she was quiet, just like he was, and maybe she'd understand. And, maybe, he wasn't the only one who had told her about the animatronics moving around at night. Maybe he wouldn't have to be so alone for this.  
It took everything in him to speak again, but when he did, it was soft, and tinged in fear. "I lied."  
"I'll apologize again."  
"No! No, not about you upsetting me. About-" He stopped, choosing his words carefully. "About it being a quiet night."  
He gauged her reaction. Charlotte sat up straight. Taking this as her giving him her undivided attention, he slowly continued. "Things happened last night, Charlotte. Some really weird stuff. And I-" He stopped, switching over to what he really wanted to say, speaking in a rushed fervor. "The animatronics. They move. They walk around at night, through the kitchen and backstage and through the lobby." He had moved in front of her now, trying to get her to look at him, but she wouldn't. "The bunny and the chicken. They walked around. I heard them; I saw them on the cameras. Bonnie, she - She looked at me, Charlotte. Right through the camera and at me." She looked at him finally, eyes burning. "They came after me. They wanted to stuff me in one of the spare suits." He didn't want to stop despite the look she was giving him, one that would otherwise stop him dead in his tracks. It took him another moment to ask his next question, tone bordering on accusatory. "Do you know anything about this?"  
There was a pause, then a sharp, "No."

Leaning over to the side, she dumped her coffee, cup and all, into the steel sink. The loud clatter made him jump back. She then hopped off the counter, shouldering past Mark. "I have to get started on things here. So you need to go." While muttering under her breath about this was a stupid idea, I never should have done that, why am I so stupid, she started out. "Wait, Char-"  
She spun to face him. "I said leave, Mark. You're gonna get in trouble if you're on the premises after work hours in uniform. We're done talking." Her voice was strained, as if she was making the conscious decision to not yell at him. "The animatronics weren't out to kill you and stuff you in a suit. You just need sleep." She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, making him watch her build her walls back up against him. Because, for a moment, she had let her guard down for him. It had taken him until now for him to realize it, and now that he did, it was like what he imagined being stabbed in the chest felt like. She had actually been nice, and tried to be his friend. _Well look where it got you, Charlotte. You're an idiot._ "Go home." With that, she turned and left him standing there, alone, in the kitchen.


	4. Tuesday Night

**TUESDAY NIGHT**

The thought to visit Charlotte during the day was an intrusive and persistent one. Mark really wanted to talk to her, to explain to her what he had encountered in full detail. Despite not wanting to hear any of it and shutting down on him, she was the only one he felt would believe him. But he fought against it, knowing that time was better spent giving her space than forcing her to listen.  
Showing up at half-past eleven to the pizzeria in uniform revealed even less people on the floor than the night before. Someone he didn't know was manning the main entrance podium, and they let him through after a glance at his badge. With a quiet 'thank you' he made his way back to the office, not looking at the animatronics, who were powered off, mouths agape and glassy eyes staring ahead.  
Steven was there to greet him with a friendly smile on his face. "Hey." Mark nodded back, stepping inside. "You're kinda quiet." He looked back at the other boy, who was looking at him with furrowed brows. "Oh. Uhm, yeah. Sorry. My head's just... Not all here." He gave a little shrug. There was a bit of hesitation, then, "Something going on?" The boys looked at each other. It was actually very kind of Steven to ask. "Uh, yeah." Mark wrapped a hand around the back of his neck. "I'll be all right though. Thank you."

While the boys situated themselves for the night - Steven clocking out and Mark trying to convince himself that being there was still a good idea - Charlotte knocked on the door, backpack slung over her back and raven hair tucked into an official-looking Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria hat. "Ready?" she asked Steven when he answered, who nodded. "Night Mark." He turned back and waved, and Mark waved back. "G'night." He didn't even get a passing glance from Charlotte as she turned her back on him and left, which made his gut twist.  
At the stroke of midnight the lights went out, the office illuminated by the door buttons and tablet screen. Here we go, he thought to himself, pulling out the box of cassette tapes and their player. He found the tape labeled 'Night Two', got it into the player and closed it, pressing the red button to start the message. Once the ringing clicked over, the familiar male voice filled the air.  
_"Uhh, hello? Hello? Uh, well, if you're hearing this and you made it to day two, uh, congrats!"_ Mark smirked cynically. _"I-I won't talk quite as long this time since Freddy and his friends tend to become more active as the week progresses..."_ His stomach flipped at the declaration; he picked up the tablet and immediately clicked it on, catching only a glance at the full-looking battery, checking the stage. Bonnie was all ready moving, gone from the stage and somewhere in the restaurant. As he listened, he tapped through the camera feeds to find the bunny. _"... Freddy himself doesn't come off stage very often. I heard he becomes a lot more active in the dark though, so, hey, I guess that's one more reason not to run out of power, right?"_ Mark threw a scowl the voicemail machine's way, then went back to finding the animatronic. She was hiding in the backstage area, a favorite spot of her's, he had come to find. "Okay, there you are," he said quietly. "Now stay." He flipped back to the main stage's camera feed, his heart skipping a beat. Chica was gone too, and it was only _one-thirty in the morning._  
_"I also want to emphasize the importance of using your door lights..."_ Door lights? He looked up and away from the screen to the two-button panel. _Right. "There are blind spots in your camera views, and those blind spots happen to be right outside of your doors."_ The thought of the animatronics lurking just outside his doorway in the pitch dark made a little frightened noise escape him. _"So if - if you can't find something, or someone, on your cameras, be sure to check the door lights."_ He didn't even want to check now. He just wanted to shut the doors. So rolling over and hitting the red button on the left, then on the right, he closed both the metal doors. Chica, wherever she was, wouldn't be able to get him now.  
Clicking the tablet awake again, his battery was all ready down to eighty-eight percent. _Whoops._ He looked for Chica, finding her in the main lobby. A little jolt of relief shot through him, getting him up from his chair and hit the red buttons on each side, opening both doors. _"Also, check on the curtain in Pirate Cove from time to time." Foxy?_ He looked up from the tablet to the machine. Was he going to be a problem tonight? _"The character in there seems unique in that he becomes more active if the cameras remain off for long periods of time. I guess he doesn't like being watched." Maybe because he's only half finished?_ Mark wondered. _"Anyway, I'm sure you have everything under control! Uh, talk to you soon!"_ Then the message cut off.

With a deep sigh, Mark went to work. He kept flipping back to Pirate Cove once he found Bonnie and Chica, who routinely cut off the video feeds for a few moments while they moved. They weren't making it easy on him, or any less frightening. The pair of them made him waste his reserved power by just checking the tablet; they toyed with him by standing right in front of the camera once they let him see again. On more than one occasion he screamed out loud in terror, the glassy green eyes of Bonnie looking right at him through the monitor, or the loud clattering of pots and pans coming from Chica in the kitchen travelling back into the office.  
At five minutes after three in the morning, Foxy became active for the first time. He'd been keeping a good eye on the pirate fox, but had taken too long to look back at him after looking for Bonnie. He was peeking out through his starry purple curtains when Mark saw him, grin more menacing than friendly in the dark. "Hey, Foxy," he greeted, finding his voice pitched and shaky. From day one that robot never gave him a good feeling; now he knew why. He was easily the most terrifying out of all of them. "God are you frightening." He kept the camera on him for a moment, then switched over to the main lobby. Empty. He flipped to the backstage camera. That room was empty too. Where were the girls?  
Trying not to panic, he flipped to the right hallway's furthest camera, finding Bonnie standing under the flickering light. Another fearful noise involuntarily slipped out of him. It was just her silhouette, but it was definitely the shadow of the six-foot-tall robot rabbit. He looked for Chica next, quickly finding her at the entrance to the bathrooms. She wasn't a pressing threat right now - he checked the clock - at three twenty-two in the morning. The bathrooms were fairly far from the office, and he'd hear her coming if she decided to run all the way to him. Her friend's presence, however, was concerning him. He clicked back to Bonnie, who hadn't moved; he checked Foxy too, finding he hadn't moved either. The battery was at fifty percent, which made him restless enough to click it off. What would happen if he didn't make it to six? The man on the voicemail had said Freddy became active once the power was out. The bear would come after him once he ran out of power, and no doubt the others would as well. If that happened, there'd only be one way this night ended - all of the robots would tear him apart and stuff his pieces into one of the spare animatronic suits backstage. What a way to go.  
He ran his hands over his face, wanting to cry. There was also the desperate desire to not be alone - it was three against one. He was vastly outnumbered, and with how afraid he was he felt like even less of a person. He wanted – needed - someone to fight this with. The first person that came to mind was Charlotte. _She'd never agree to it though. She basically hates me._ The thought of someone hating him only added to his despair. Trying to distract himself, he turned his attention back to the tablet, waking it and swiping through the camera feeds, finding Chica in the furthest part of the left hallway, Foxy still peeking out from Pirate Cove, and Bonnie nowhere to be found. Another round of panicky swiping confirmed his fears - he couldn't see her. So, he clicked off the tablet and listened for a moment to see if she was in the kitchen.

Silence passed over him for a moment, a sort of suffocating calm coming along with it. For a moment, it was like it was just another night, and killer animatronics weren't out to rip his body to pieces.  
The loud sound of footsteps and metal scraping against floor echoed through the left hallway, making him jump out of his seat. She was moving, toward him, the noises steadily growing closer. "Oh god," he whispered as he looked to the doorway its darkness. He pushed back from the metal desk, stood slowly, and moved quietly to the door as the footsteps almost synched up with his. He needed to shut the door, forget checking the blind spots. He could hear her moving, he knew she was there.  
A dark figure passed by the window looking out into the hallway as he reached the two-button panel, the lights washing his face in stark red and white. That's when Mark looked out into the dark and saw her, taking her final steps toward the door. His blood ran cold.  
Bonnie was taller than six feet, he realized, now that she was on the ground and he was getting a proper look at her. Seven feet, eight feet tall at most, with weathered purple fur around her joints and dark stains around the eyes and mouth that he didn't see before. For a moment Bonnie just let him look at her, sizing him up and seeing what she could tear into first. The thought of blood - his blood - being spilled because of this robot made him hit the red button hard and let the metal door slide down.  
There was a second of silence, then repeated loud banging on the door tore through the air. It made Mark leap back with a shout. _I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, oh my god I'm going to die-_ The banging continued as he stood there watching the closed door, begging for it to stay closed, forgetting for a moment about the other animatronics.

A bit of time passed before silence finally settled in the room. He slowly approached the doorway and pressed the white button, turning on the hall light outside. It revealed no shadow on the outside wall that he could see. He held it for a moment, to catch anything if it moved, then let go, letting it go dark again. Though he was scared to open the door, he did, pressing the red button and letting it slide open. Nothing but darkness greeted him. The noise that he let out was a choked yelp of relief, tears of joy threatening.  
With shaking legs, he walked back and fell into his chair, picking up the tablet and waking it. It was at twenty percent, and he was within the five o'clock hour. He sighed through his nose and clicked through the camera feeds, finding Bonnie back at the end of the hallway and Chica in the dining area. Foxy made his breath catch, however, when he saw the fox standing outside of his curtains, eyes bright against his dark silhouette, the metal insides of his mouth glinting. _Not Foxy too..._ The thought of having to face off against a seven-foot-tall robotic fox with a very real metal hook for a hand made his stomach churn, making him nauseous. "Please stay there," he whispered. "Please don't move." He didn't put the tablet to sleep, deciding to test out the voicemail man's theory about not liking to be watched. Leaving the camera trained on Foxy, Mark strained to hear if anything came down the hallways. If one of the others decided to strike, he had to be at least somewhat ready. But nothing came, the night ending with the chime of bells and sixteen percent battery.  
He clicked it into sleep mode when the first bell chimed and tossed it onto the desktop, ready to get out of the security office as soon as possible. He let the hour ring in, taking a moment to steady his breathing and calm himself down. Once six o'clock came around, Charlotte did too. The moment he heard the knocking at the door, he got up, opened it, and breezed past her without a second thought. As he left, he saw her watch him go, a fine mixture of shock and hurt on her face.  
Maybe she was ready to forgive him; maybe she was ready to listen. But right now, he wasn't ready to talk. He just wanted to go home.


	5. Wednesday Later Afternoon

**WEDNESDAY LATE AFTERNOON**

For the first time since Mark had started his job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, he arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Compared to the night, the restaurant during the day was very fun and warm - its walls were a sunny yellow color, accented in whites and oranges. The day uniforms, as he had seen on Charlotte in passing, were orange, yellow, and brown. The animatronics were up on stage singing their songs and interacting with the guests. It was a very welcoming and friendly environment.  
He had come in alone in a casual pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but with his badge tucked in his back pocket just in case. After having his hand stamped with blacklight ink, he was admitted onto the main floor. There were quite a few families for a Wednesday, and even one group in the party area. Some were eating; others were watching their children play. Contrary to what he had seen during the evening and night, once he really looked around, the main floor was much smaller in the light of day. _That would explain why they seem to move so fast,_ he thought to himself, despite the fact that he promised himself he wouldn’t come here to talk or even think about the night shift. He had come here to talk to Charlotte, apologize for being so forward and aggressive, and hopefully make amends. The thought of anyone truly hating him made his stomach queasy – he wanted to be friends, or at least on courteous terms, with everyone he met and knew. At this point he was pretty sure he was going to be alone for this, so he had decided to not try and convince anyone that the animatronics were out to kill him.  
He walked around the floor a bit, scoping out the adults, trying to find his co-worker. Instead, however, he caught sight of a familiar shock of blonde hair – Patricia was handling a birthday, happily supervising the twenty or so children that played amongst themselves, ate cake, or danced with one of the other party employees. He decided to try her first. She always seemed to know things about Charlotte. Maybe she could help him find her.

He walked over, being careful to not trip on any small children. Catching sight of him first, the girl beamed and waved. “Hey, Mark!” she greeted, hugging him tightly. She pulled away with an arched brow. “Are you here for the Danvers’ birthday?” She laughed; he did too. “No, I’m actually here looking for Charlotte,” he replied. “Oh! She’s on lunch, back by Pirate Cove.” She arched her brow again. “What’s up?” He turned sheepish as he wrapped a hand around the back of his neck. “I just wanna, y’know, apologize and stuff. See if that does anything.” The blonde’s face contorted with guilt. “She still giving you the cold shoulder?” He nodded. “I’m so sorry.” She glanced over at the kids, scanning them quickly before looking back at him. “She’ll warm up to you. I know it. You’re a great guy.” Her smile was warm, loving, much like a mother’s was. It made Mark’s heart swell.  
With that little boost of confidence, he went over to Pirate Cove, which was significantly less crowded, the only people being two small families sitting near the entrance. Closer to the curtained-off stage was Charlotte, eating something out of a little carton, jacket over her uniform and headphones in. He approached her slowly, stopping in his tracks once she looked up and saw him. Hazel eyes locked onto brown, and after giving him a once-over, she decided she wasn’t going to bother and went back to her food. “Charlotte, wait-” She took another bite and didn’t look up at him.  
Instead of walking away, he took the seat across from her. “Please leave,” she said immediately. “I’m not going until we talk.” Not looking up from her small carton of food, she took another bite, saying, “I don’t want to talk to you.” When he refused to move, she swallowed, took a headphone out, and looked up at him. The look on his face made her heart suddenly ache – it was just the right mixture of guilty and desperate. “Then just listen. Please, Charlotte. I want-”  
_I’m sorry Mark._ “Don’t.” Like dynamite, her voice blew into something she was straining to keep quiet. She couldn’t yell, especially when in uniform, but he was really pushing it. “I just wanted to apologize...” That didn’t do much to change her demeanor – she was still gripping her food like she was about to throw it in his face. Inside, however, the tone he used broke her heart. “I don’t care,” she responded, venom dripping from her words. _I care so much that I can’t anymore._ “Now leave before I dump my chicken teriyaki down your front.” He didn’t move, still looking at her, brown eyes filled with desperation. Don’t, Charlotte. Don’t fall for it. You can’t. Not again. “You’ve got three seconds.”  
Despite counting to three out loud, he didn’t move. She thought he was just being stubborn, but something tugged at her to tell her that there was more to it. _Ignore it. He’s on his own._ Not wanting to waste the rest of her lunch, she stood first, orange metal chair almost toppling over as she pushed away from the table. “Fine. I’ll go find another place to eat then,” she muttered, stabbing her fork into the little carton of rice and meat and quickly making her way out of Pirate Cove.

For a few moments, all Mark could do was sit. It dawned on him just how tired he was, his emotions drained and body exhausted. Night shift was definitely not easy, especially his type of night shift. He sighed, leaned back, and ran a hand through his hair. He just wanted to say he was sorry. All he wanted was to talk to her. And where did it get him? Sitting in the place he was quickly coming to hate the most, alone, with no progress made.  
“Hey stranger.” He looked up and saw Patricia standing before him, plastic lunchbox in hand. “Didn’t go well?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” She took the vacant seat across from him. “I just… I don’t get it,” he confessed, looking up at the ceiling as he spoke. “Why is she so mean to me? She’s not like that with Steven, or you. She’s a little sassy with Manny, but she probably doesn’t threaten to throw her lunch in his face.” From his peripheral he saw the blonde cringe. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.” He could see her moving, getting her lunch out and set up, so he looked down at her and watched with curiosity. It was a homemade lunch – a brownie, juice pouch, golden fish-shaped crackers, and a sandwich. It was a really cute, very fitting little setup. It made him smile a little.  
“Honestly, she’s probably just jaded.” She began unwrapping her sandwich. “She’s been working here for three years, Mark. You gotta remember that. She’s seen a lot of people come and go, night guards especially.” It was a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, cut across into two triangles. Who made this, her parents? “I’ve only worked here two months and I saw three just in that time quit or get fired.” He leaned forward a little, that small statistic catching his interest. “She’s probably seen twelve or thirteen.” She nodded, poking the straw into her juice pouch and taking a sip. “She tried to be friends with them at first. She was super trusting, super kind. Only a couple were nice back. Honestly, the majority of them were assholes,” she explained, disgust in her voice. “The few that were nice to her, they ended up quitting really early on. Like, after the first or second night. Didn’t say goodbye, didn’t give her their phone number, nothing. They just left.” That would make anyone upset, he agreed. “She stopped being friendly and trusting to night guards after that.” Patricia sounded hurt, as if it wasn’t just Charlotte that was abandoned by those guards.  
“What happened to the previous night guards?” Mark asked, voice lowered a bit. She took another bite of her sandwich, thinking it over. “A lot of ‘em disappeared,” she responded after swallowing. “Like, completely disappeared. We’ve apparently had cops come by a time or two because of it. I’ve never had to deal with that, but.” She shrugged. He leaned forward a little more. “How do you know all this?” he asked. “Charlie told me.” It was said with a tone of pride and something resembling love. “She talks to me when she needs to vent. I’m happy to lend her an ear.” As she unboxed her small container of crackers, he raised an eyebrow and smiled a little. “That’s sweet of you.” Patricia smiled bashfully and poured a few into the palm of her hand. “How long before you tell her you’ve got a crush on her?” That made her head swing up and their eyes lock, her baby blues wide with surprise. “It’s okay,” he laughed, putting his hands up. “Your secret’s safe with me.” Mark was just making a guess, but by her reaction she really did have a crush on the other girl. That was okay with him, for whatever it was worth. He and Charlotte weren’t exactly on talking terms at the moment anyways. “Was it that obvious?” she said quietly, sheepishness in her voice. Thinking back on it, he noticed how eager she was to impress the other girl, how sweet she was around her, and how much she seemed to talk about her. “A little,” he replied with another laugh.

Keeping Patricia company while she ate left Mark a few minutes to think. Thirteen night guards, many of whom went missing somehow and didn’t leave a trace behind. So many questions came to mind. How long did the longest night guard last? What made that one leave? What caused them to get fired rather than quit? Where did they all go? What happened to them? Questions about Charlotte started to crop up as well, more than he all ready had before. How close did she get to some of these night guards? What did they tell her? Did they tell her about the animatronics too? Maybe that was why she was so against listening to what happened. And why did they choose her? Was it because she closed every night, and opened every morning? He remembered the first time he saw her the morning after the first night; he had never been happier to see another human being, and wanted to tell her everything. It was entirely possible that they wanted, and did, the same.  
The most pressing question he had, however, was weather the night guards who disappeared, the ones that the police came looking for, were stuffed into the suits stored backstage.


	6. Wednesday Night

**WEDNESDAY NIGHT**

Since he was a child, Mark had it repeated to him time and time again to not be late. He was a very punctual person because of it, always arriving at least ten minutes early to anything he had scheduled. In the case of his job, he usually showed up half an hour early, just to catch up with Steven and prepare himself for the night ahead.  
Unfortunately, tonight, he was running late. He burst through the double-doors of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria at eleven forty-five, dressed a bit hastily in his uniform, hair a wild dark cloud above his head, and almost toppled over the entryway rug. It made the whopping four people look up at him, eyes a little wide with surprise at the sudden commotion. Charlotte was at the greeter’s podium, looking at him with mild amusement. She didn’t even get a chance to unlatch the velvet rope – he half-stepped-half-hopped over it and rushed back to the security office.  
"I'm here! I'm not late, I swear. I just-" He was about to start the explanation of his very well-thought-out excuse, but the sight of Steven fiddling with the tablet at the security desk made him go quiet. "Oh! Sorry." He lowered his voice dramatically as he walked inside. "What's goin' on?" He peeked over his co-worker's shoulder. "Ah, nothing. Just-" Steven continued to fiddle with the charging cable. "Damn thing won't take a charge." Mark's heart skipped a beat. Would that mean he'd have to experience no power? The mental image of him in the darkness waiting for his death made him want to vomit. "Ah-ha!" He looked back down at an accomplished Steven, whose hands were open wide in triumph. "Got'cha, stupid thing." He finally looked up and over at Mark. "Hey. The uh, the charger is being kind of an ass. Sorry." With an embarrassed chuckle he got up from the chair, opening it for the other security guard. "How you doin'? Everything okay?" A shrug and a simple 'eh' was all he got. "Eesh. I'm sorry, man."  
"It's all good. Why's the tablet not taking a charge?" He sat down and looked over at the piece of equipment, cursing it mentally. That was his only means of survival during the night. "I think it's something to do with the cord," he heard Steven say as he continued to focus on the tablet. "The tablet's in perfect condition. No scratches, no cracks, nothing. So it can't be the device itself." _I swear to god, if the cord is what kills me, if the stupid cord is what gets me stuffed in a suit, I'm going to dedicate my afterlife to haunting every manufacturer of tablets._ "And if it is, well, there's a two-year warranty on it." He laughed.  
The routine knock on the door alerted both of them that it was time. "You gonna be okay?" Mark looked up at Steven. For a moment the other boy’s dark skin and gentle eyes almost made him say no. He wasn't going to be okay, and he was afraid, and he really wanted to go home. But instead, he forced his head to nod. "Yeah. Thanks." As the door opened, Charlotte popped her head inside the office. "Closing time, boys," she said. "Five minutes to midnight." With one last look and a little wave, Steven began heading out. "Char." It was just soft enough that, if she didn't hear, he wouldn't have held it against her. But she seemed to, because she paused in her descent. "Charlotte." He said it a little louder; a moment passed before she turned and looked at him, eyes wary. "I'll see you in the morning?" He offered her a little apologetic smile. Another pause. "Yeah. See you tomorrow." She didn't smile at him, but her tone wasn’t exactly cold either. Something was better than nothing.

At the stroke of midnight the lights went dark, the familiar light of the door control panels and the tablet screen bathing him in a sort of white-red glow. He began his routine, pulling out the box full of cassette tapes, the voicemail machine to play them back on, and moving the tablet to the side of the desktop. He situated the tape and its player, awaking the tablet with a press of the power button just to be ready. When he caught sight of the battery percentage, his heart sank. It wasn't fully charged. Sure, the bright green 99% written in the bottom left corner wouldn't be a bad thing for most people, but his life depended on this thing.  
He pressed the play button at the same time he clicked over to the main stage's feed, Chica all ready missing. _''Hello, hello? Hey you're doing great! Most people don’t last this long."_ Mark's smile at the machine was sardonic. _"I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died. Th-th-that’s not what I meant..."_ His stomach flipped at the mention of dying, but elected to ignore it and the rest of the phone call. Whatever this guy had to say wasn't anywhere near as important as finding Chica and watching the other animatronics.  
Finding Chica at the end of the right hallway didn't scare Mark as much as it would have earlier in the week. He just mentally noted it and went back to the main stage's feed. No one had moved, which made his brows furrow. That was weird. It was about to be twelve thirty. Usually there'd be more than just one out by now, especially since the man on the machine had said that they became more active as the week went on.  
He flipped over to Pirate Cove. Fear strangled a curse out of him. The purple curtains had been pulled back to reveal an empty stage.  
The main lobby was empty. The main stage still held Bonnie and Freddy, but it made him jump when he saw that the bear was looking at the camera. "Okay, sorry, didn't mean to bother you," he said, flipping to the left hallway's camera.  
Foxy stood at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.  
For a moment, time seemed slow down. Mark watched the camera feed cut to static and listen as the robot clomped from one end of the hallway to the other. It charged into the room with more agility than any normal robot should have. He pounced through the doorway, taking Mark down out of the chair and onto the floor with his paw and the flat curve of his hook. With the robot on top of him, a loud cry erupted from the young man’s mouth, the overwhelming smell of copper and rotting meat spewing the from the animatronic’s muzzle. Just over his cry and the scents numbing his senses, he could make out the loud mechanical clicking and scraping that was the inside of the animatronic moving. He looked up past the weathered muzzle and half-open mouth full of sharp metal pieces for just a moment to catch a pair of very real-looking human eyes looking back at him. The uncanny resemblance to an actual person's eyes made another noise escape him, one much more desperate and frightened.  
He was being held down by the shoulders, and his head was shutting down on him, but he could still feel his hands; he could still hear his heart beating, no matter how fast. He was alive. And he could do something to stay that way. Though strong enough to hold Mark down, Foxy seemed to be a very lightweight animatronic, no doubt from being stripped of many of his parts. Fighting the violent shaking that had overtaken his body, he tucked his feet and legs in the gap between himself and the animatronic and kicked up, sending the lithe robot flying back into the dark hallway.  
For a moment he laid there, staring up at the dark ceiling, letting his senses slowly return to him. _You're not dead. Get up. Move. Shut the door on that fox. Do not die._ When he heard the familiar metallic clicking again, he jumped to his feet, his legs almost going out from under him. Foxy had gotten up at the same time, Mark watching in horror as the thing stood up straight and tall. It was taller than the other animatronics, he realized, hunching over on stage when it was powered down. Just under its eye sockets were the stains of some liquid he could only let his imagination try guess, and matching dark stains around the mouth.

He didn't have any sort of plan to try and take this thing down. The tablet was nowhere to be found, so time and the other animatronics were irrelevant. It was Mark against Foxy, and it was anyone's match.  
They stood tall against one another, neither moving suddenly. "All right," he said, mostly to himself; the noise made the fox's head tilt just slightly to one side. Does he understand me? The idea made his heart skip a beat. What if the AI in the robots was smarter than everyone had thought? "Okay." He decided not to try and test the robot's capacity for mercy, seeing as it just attacked him and looked ready to do it again if he moved wrong. "You want a piece of me, you stupid fox?" he heard himself say in a much stronger voice than he thought was capable of. "Let's go!" He really didn't know what he was doing. "Come at me!"  
Egging on a killer robot without any idea on how to fight it off was a stupid idea. Trying to befriend Charlotte was a stupid idea. Taking this job was a stupid idea. Everything thus far had been a stupid idea. So when he reached around and grabbed the rolling chair he had been using and slammed it across the fox’s face, he smiled out of just how stupid it must've looked. He was batting away an easily seven-foot-tall psychotic animatronic with a mostly-plastic chair with wheels on its legs. That seemed to have knocked some surprise into Foxy – maybe he thought it absolutely ridiculous too - because he stumbled back a few steps and into the doorway of the office. Tossing the chair to the side, Mark ran forward and hit the red button, the door sliding down and taking the animatronic down with it.  
Everything was a stupid idea, but that wasn't as stupid as the other ideas he’d had before.  
Mark kicked the head repeatedly until it dislodged and fell behind the door, making sure to not catch on anything inside the mouth.

Silence enveloped the little office in false calm. The sound of something thumping against the ground was fading - Foxy's footsteps. He was leaving. Mark ran his hands over his face, finding his cheeks warm and damp. _Did I-?_ It wasn't sweat, or even blood, but tears. In the midst of the first real attack he’d encountered, the dams just behind his eyes seemed to have broken. He sniffed, finding his nose just a bit stuffed up as well. _I don't feel any better, though. Usually crying makes people feel better._ He rubbed his nose. _Maybe I should try and cry again._ Unfortunately, he didn't have time. He hadn't heard any sort of clock chimes, and there were still three other animatronics to take care of.  
But first he had to find the tablet. In the scuffle it was launched who-knows-where, and it wasn't only his lifeline, but also an expensive piece of technology. Keeping the left door securely shut, Mark searched for a few minutes. In that time he also righted the chair, which was surprisingly unscathed, and fixed a few of the things that had fallen over on the desk.  
The tablet was tucked in a corner unharmed. He pressed the power button, waking it, breathing a gentle sigh of relief to see that it was still working. The battery was in the seventies region, and it was three in the morning. His legs were beginning to shake again – adrenaline from the fight finally filtering through his system - making it hard to stand. So, crossing the small space, he sat down in his chair, opening the camera feeds.  
Foxy had moved back to Pirate Cove. _Good. Fuck right off._ Chica was in the lobby, Bonnie was in the supply closet, and Freddy had, for the first time, moved off-stage. His microphone was hooked into the little stand, and after a bit of flipping through the cameras, Mark found him hanging at the end of right hallway. "Do I gotta worry about you too?" he said quietly, his voice cracking at the end in frustration. He didn't want to fight anyone else tonight.  
As he watched each of them through the cameras, it almost felt like it was his first night again - occasionally when he'd flip to a robot, like Chica or Freddy, they would have moved extra close to the camera, making him jump just a little. He also was watching the battery drain as well, the door on the left taking up more power than he was comfortable wasting. He got up from his spot and walked over to the left door to fix it, setting the tablet down on the desktop as he went.  
He pressed the glowing red button, watching the door slide up and open, revealing a dark but occupied hallway.  
Bonnie stood at the doorway, glassy eyes staring down at him. Instead of a scream, he strangled out the word "nope" instead and immediately shut the door back on her. She responded by banging on the door hard enough to make him feel the percussions in his chest. He repeated the word "nope" as he walked backwards into the center of the office, taking the tablet in hand but not bothering to sit down. That was _way_ too close for comfort. He checked the battery. It had dropped into the low fifties, and was steadily dropping as Bonnie continued to hammer on the door. "Hey, no! Stop that!" he shouted at the tablet and at the robot outside. "Stop!" he repeated, louder this time, a bit more desperately. "I don't want to die..." He hugged the tablet close to his chest.

It felt like Bonnie was there banging on the door forever. He hadn't bothered to check the time or where the other animatronics were, knowing that even the tablet wasted battery. So he just stood in the middle of the office, tablet against his chest, watching the door in case it opened suddenly and he had to fight. If he had to fight again, he didn't know if he could win. Bonnie was a lot bulkier than Foxy was, and she was properly put together, which meant she weighed more. Mark wouldn't be able to just kick her off and shut the door, and there weren't any sort of weapons in the office that he knew about. He had his fists, a metal desk, and a chair with wheels.  
The sound of silence broke through his thoughts. Tiptoeing over to the closed door, he hit the white button, illuminating the hallway. Empty. He opened the door again, finding it dark and abandoned. He woke the tablet, seeing that it was close to five in the morning, and the battery was at twenty percent. Making his way over to his chair, he took a seat and flipped through the feeds to find the robots. Foxy was in Pirate Cove, Chica was near the bathrooms, Freddy was in the lobby, and Bonnie was at the end of the hallway. He sighed. It was getting on toward the end of the night; they were probably moving farther from him so they didn't have to do it later.

A constant, low gurgling sound mixed with the sound of muttering slowly faded into the room. What was going on? Mark looked at the camera feed with brows furrowed, the image of the empty hallway still and unoccupied. There were a few posters, all of which looked to be hand-drawn by children. There was one, however, that caught his attention. It looked to have been printed up rather than drawn, and it was much clearer than the others. It was a close-up photo of Freddy Fazbear's face. But it wasn't Freddy - this one wasn't brown like the one he knew, but a grimy golden color. "What-?"  
He looked up from the tablet and jumped. There in the corner, the same corner he found the tablet in not too long ago, was a Freddy Fazbear. It was limp and unmoving; his head tilted to one side and his mouth was hanging open, giving off the impression that it wasn't alive like the others were. Was this a trick? It looked just like the other Freddy, complete with the microphone, black top hat, and bowtie. The difference however was that this was the one from the poster, the one with dirty golden fur. The noises were getting louder as he looked on at the suit, putting down the tablet and sizing it up, trying not to even blink. They didn't stop, his senses slowly being overtaken by what was happening. His vision went black around the edges, and he couldn't hear anything but the gurgling and muttering from before paired with the new sound of children laughing happily. He still didn't look away despite it getting harder to see, blackness rounding out his sight and only letting him focus on the Freddy in the corner.  
It continued, overwhelming the entire office, the sound of young screams ringing out. Mark covered his ears, chest going tight at the thought of who those screams belonged to. The strong scent of blood filled the air, making him gag. He didn't know why this was happening, all he knew was that it was real, and it was happening right now. All he could see was the golden Freddy suit, limp but threatening to strike. Words came then, the first real set of words he had heard since this had started.  
"It's me."  
He fell out of the chair and onto his knees, tucking into himself with his hands over his ears and eyes shut tight. But he could still see it, the face of the golden Freddy leering at him from the dark corner of the office. There was no more laughter, just screaming and crying, and a low voice saying, "It's me." _No... Go away... I don't like you anymore... No... Please... I want to go home..._ More crying and screaming broke up his thoughts; he didn’t even know if the thoughts were his. It was so loud that all of the noises blended together, becoming one indistinguishable entity, but one by one, they were each silenced suddenly, as if someone was hitting the mute button. Finally all he could hear was labored breathing that wasn't his own. He was overcome with terror and heartbreak, not fully sure weather that was him or whatever was making this happen. Children were dead, weren’t they?

"It's me."


	7. Thursday Morning

**THURSDAY MORNING**

Mark opened his eyes.  
The gray light of dawn filtered through the open doors, bathing the normally dark office in a hopeful sort of glow. He was on his side, staring at the tangle of camera wires under the desk. A hand was set gently on his shoulder; he turned his head to look up and find a diamond-shaped face looking back at him framed by long, dark hair.  
Charlotte. She was here. That meant it was morning. He was _alive_.  
“Charlotte?” His voice was strained. She let go as he cleared his throat and sat up slowly, unwinding from his fetal position. He looked over at her. “What-?”  
“You were lying on the ground shaking, so I came in.” Her voice lacked any sort of definitive emotion. “I decided to not try and wake you from… Whatever that was. So I just sat down and waited.” He continued to look at her, seeing the sadness in her eyes. In that moment, more than anything, he wanted her to listen and believe. “How long did you have to wait?” His voice was still rough. “I came in at six ten. It’s almost seven.” Almost an hour since the clock struck six? How long had he been in that position before that? All he could remember from the last hour of his shift was screaming and the smell of blood.  
She stood up, holding out her hand for him to take. It was then he noticed that she wasn’t in uniform. “C’mon.” He looked at her hand, then at her. “We’re gonna go get breakfast. We’ve got some stuff to talk about.” The statement made his heart skip a beat. “What about this place?” he asked, still hesitant on taking her hand. “No one can get in or out without the key. And I’ve got the key.” She wiggled her fingers. “So are you comin’ or not?” Mark took her hand in his and she hoisted him to his feet.

Breakfast, as it turned out, was only a short walk from the pizzeria. It was in a small, very typical fifties diner, complete with glossy red upholstery and checkered tile.  
When the pair walked in, a spritely older gentleman approached them, dressed in a white button-up and black slacks. He smiled wide once he saw Charlotte. “Well good mornin’ Charlotte!” he greeted cheerily. “Hi Walt.” She waved back. His sunny demeanor made Mark smile. “It’s been a while. Where’ve you been?” She gave him a one-shouldered shrug, which made him chuckle. “Who’s your friend here?” They both looked at Mark, who grew timid as soon as the attention was placed on him. “Oh. Uhm, Walt, this is Mark. Mark, Walt.” She gestured between the two. “We’ll take the usual, please.” The old man nodded, and gestured for them to follow.  
Charlotte’s usual was a small red upholstered booth made just for two people. They sat down and Walt bustled back into the kitchen. “You’re not gonna want anything,” she piped up as Mark reached for a menu. “He’s gonna get coffee for us. He’s gonna pour us our first cups, then leave the pot here.” It sounded as if her and her waiter friend had done this sort of thing before. Maybe she has. The man came back with two mugs and a pot of coffee a moment later, just like she said he would. They were clean but mismatched – one was covered in dog pawprints, and one had a farm scene painted on it. They looked like mugs that were donated, or brought in from someone’s home; it was a nice touch. He poured them their first cups, then set the coffee pot on the table. “Thanks Walt.” He nodded, patting her on the shoulder before shuffling away. They were left alone, the only ones in the diner save for the employees.  
“So.” Charlotte began pouring creamers into her coffee. “Go ahead and explain to me the cuts and bruises on your face.” He had cuts and bruises on his face? She answered his unspoken question. “You’ve got a gash on your forehead, and your right cheek is purple.” She finished pouring her fourth creamer into her coffee before looking at him. “You do that to yourself?” He shook his head, a loss for words. Foxy had actually inflicted damage on him. It wasn’t just an emotional and mental thing anymore. She leaned forward, looking him dead in the eye. “Then talk to me.”

With every bit of energy and willpower, Mark told Charlotte of everything he had encountered the past three nights. From the animatronics looking at him through the camera to coming face-to-face with Bonnie and fighting off Foxy, he spared no detail. He described to her the sounds he had to listen for; the games that the robots seemed to play with him over the course of each night. She listened quietly and intently, taking the occasional sip of coffee. When he had to recount what had happened that landed him on the floor and in a fetal position last night, it got tough to speak. His throat got tight as he told her what came back to him. The golden Freddy apparition, the sound of children screaming, the putrid smell of blood. Though he didn’t cry, the overwhelming urge to kept pressing up against the back of his eyes.  
Once he finished, there was a long lapse of silence. He decided to get to work on his coffee, pouring five sugar packets in it and a creamer, hoping to get the aftertaste of last night’s shift out of his mouth. Charlotte’s cup was almost empty, so he refilled it before taking a drink of his own. She fixed it the way she liked it, then spoke. Her voice was soft. “I’m sorry,” were the first words out. It made his heart ache. “You didn’t deserve to get ruined by this.” She looked down at her coffee. “The night guard position has been jinxed since before I started working here.” At thirteen guards quitting or getting fired, and a few even going missing, he couldn’t help but let his curiosity get the better of him. “Why’s the job jinxed?” he asked. A little snort escaped her. “Who knows. We’ve always had problems.” She shook her head. “Like what?” he pressed. The question made her look at him, disbelief in her eyes. “You know, the Missing Children Incident? The Bite of ’87?” He looked back at her with a confused expression. “Oh my god, you don’t know.” She leaned back a little. “No wonder you took the job.”  
“Well, get comfy, you’re in for a hell of a history lesson.” He adjusted himself a little then nodded for her to start.

“I guess I’ll start with the Missing Children Incident.” There was a pause as she gathered her thoughts. “In the winter of 1985, five children were lured into the back of our Freddy Fazbear’s restaurant and disappeared. They caught a guy and he admitted to killing them, but no one ever found the bodies. A lot of news outlets ran with the story that the guy ate them to try and hide the evidence.” Mark almost gagged. The thought of children dying made it hard to breathe, but adding cannibalism to the mix made him want to vomit. “Somewhere between conviction and putting him behind bars, the guy disappeared too. No one knows what happened to him either. A lot of people say he fled the country.” She took a drink. “That was the first time Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria closed its doors and went under renovation since it opened in 1979.” That must be the renovation the newspaper article was talking about.  
“We reopened a few months later. A whole new design, new color scheme, new marketing campaign. They wanted people to forget about what happened. And it worked. No one remembered the missing kids and their murderer. Customers came back, and we were okay again, for a while.” She shrugged. “Marketing and PR decided to focus more on the animatronics, make them more interactive and kid-friendly. They began testing out AI in the robots, give them better upgrades so they could get off stage and do stuff with the kids. Dance, sing ‘Happy Birthday’, play games. Stuff like that.” It explained why they moved as well as they did, with hardly any hitches or movements actually resembling robots. “It was a good gimmick. It tested really well, so they kept it. They got upgrades every year, complete with a new paint job and clean set of furs.”  
Another long pause punctuated the conversation. Charlotte wasn’t looking at Mark, but over his head at the adjacent wall. She wasn’t just thinking - he could see that it was just as hard talking about this as it was for him to talk about the night shift. “But, as time went on, things started going… Bad.” He leaned forward, encouraging her to continue. “The animatronics weren’t able to tell the difference between adults and stripped down exoskeletons. They’re programmed to put robotic exoskeletons in a suit, you know.” That he did, thanks to the man from the messages. “At first, they would just ignore adults if they came up to any of the animatronics, y’know, if they wanted a picture or whatever. They’d just walk away, or turn their attention to the kids. It was if they were grabbed wrong that they got, well, _violent_.”  
“That’s how The Bite happened.” Her voice went soft, setting the hair on the back of his neck on end. “In the summer of 1987, Freddy’s had gone from mom-and-pop pizza shop to full-on restaurant chain. There was a big party here, at our location. Some dude tipsy on the heat and the alcohol we used to sell came up to Foxy.” Of course it was Foxy, he thought to himself. Charlotte took a deep breath in, speaking as she exhaled. “He wanted a picture. Foxy wasn’t having it. He tried to turn away, but the guy grabbed his arm and…” She stopped. It took a moment for her to speak again, voice strained and quiet. “He bit him. Foxy bit the guy. And tore out his frontal lobe.” Mark covered his mouth in shock, the voice message playing in his head from his very first night.  
“The guy, he lived for a while. The company paid all of his medical expenses as a way to sweep him under the rug. That worked too. The guy never went to the press about any of it. An ‘accident’-” She put air quotes around the word “- closed our doors for the second time. We stayed closed until 1990,” she finished, wrapping her hands around the lukewarm mug and taking a drink.

“The second time the chain reopened, there wasn’t such a warm welcoming. Sure, some places got upgrades – they added ball pits, arcades where you can win prizes, y’know, stuff to try and draw in the crowds.” She waved her hand. “And all of the art, the advertisements, they didn’t feature Foxy anymore. He was taken out of the lineup after The Bite. They thought it would be better that way.” Was that another reason why he was so angry? Because he was being ignored? “But us here, we just weren’t as popular anymore. No one was really using animatronics as a gimmick. It was just us. Why do you think we have so many spare parts backstage?” She refilled their mugs. “I mean, we still got a good crowd. People still planned parties here. It was still crowded on the weekends. It wasn’t great, but it was all right.” She shrugged. “But then people started talking, complaining to management about the look and smell of the animatronics.” His heart was beating hard in his chest. “They were starting to look weathered. Y’know, their fur wearing away, joints beginning to show. Their insides were beginning to poke through their mouths. It was a little unsettling for guests, seeing all the sharp little parts.” Her voice was cynical. “And the smell… People kept saying they smelled copper and rotting meat if they stood too close to the animatronics.” Mark’s heart jumped. He could attest to that. “But management put out a statement, basically saying, ‘Disneyland’s animatronics smell like crayons ‘cause of the oil they use to keep them lubricated. That’s the reason ours smell like copper and dead cow’.” She smirked, shaking her head. And though he couldn’t quite understand why they smelled that way either, he agreed with Charlotte. That was a half-baked excuse.  
“Attendance has been plummeting since. Weekends aren’t as busy, and weekdays are almost always deserted,” she explained. “We get between one and three parties each weekend when we used to get five or six. Floor staff was cut in half. And the night guards…” She finally looked at him. He looked back, enthralled with the story. “We couldn’t ever keep ‘em. They always got fired, or they quit. We’ve even had one or two end up in metal institutions.” They didn’t break eye contact. “They always went straight to Manny about animatronics moving at night and coming after them with the intent to kill.” She smiled just a little, full of spite. “And the ones that came to me… I reported them to Manny too.” She took her cup in her hands and took a sip. Oh no. “You’re not-” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not.” He refrained from sighing in relief as she took another drink. “You’re the first night guard in a long time that’s actually been nice to me.” Her voice had gone back to being melancholy, if not a little wistful.  
For a while they sat together in silence, processing the new information they learned while quietly reveling in each other’s company. They went through the coffee pot, not bothering to ask for a second one. They were both jittery enough as it was.

Charlotte set her coffee cup down and spoke, not looking at him, but her hands, which were wrapped around her mug. “I thought being mean to you would drive you out. It’s worked before, y’know? ‘Cause you’re-” She looked up at him. “You’re just like some of the others. The good ones. You’re smart, and you’re kind. You’re warm and passionate and gentle.” Her smile was just as sad as her voice. “I got them to get out before they got hurt. I’m- I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out too.” Mark’s heart broke, leaving him speechless. It was at that moment that he realized she care the entire time. Right from day one, all she was trying to do was help. She didn't hate him. She was trying to save him. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this too,” he said softly, then paused. She leaned back in her seat, that unreadable expression coming over her face.  
“Stay with me tonight.” He didn’t have to elaborate – she knew what he was asking. “No, Mark.” Her voice was sterile and but soft, an apology wrapped in her refusal. “Charlotte, please-” She cut him off. “I can’t. I won’t. If what you said was true, and the animatronics are really out to kill, running in there with no idea how to defend myself isn’t just stupid. It’s suicide. And I don’t plan on dying because of a six-foot-tall robotic bunny rabbit stuffing me in a metal suit.” Convince me that it’s not a bad idea, he swore he heard in her tone. “And even if I could, even if I wanted to, I’d be risking my job if I stayed after hours without getting overtime approved. I’d get fired the minute Manny found out I stayed past my shift’s end.” I want to stay, but I don’t want to without a good reason, the Charlotte in his head said. “I can wipe the cameras!” Mark said suddenly. She arched a brow at his outburst. “I can make sure that if you stay it won’t be on the cameras. I can erase that part of the footage.” Admittedly he didn’t know how to do that, but he was a damn convincing liar. “I just – Charlotte, please, I want to show you. I want you to believe in me,” he pressed on. That made her throat tight. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”  
She looked away and went quiet for a long time. When he felt she was close to a decision, he made one last attempt at a plea, voice soft and desperate, not trying to mask his fear anymore. “All I ask is one night. One night to show you that I’m telling you the truth. Please, Charlie.” It was all he’d need to show that the animatronics were out for blood.  
After her coffee had gone cold and undrinkable, Charlotte looked at him. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and embers were alight in her eyes. It was more intimidating than the look she wore the first time they met. “One night. You’ve got _one night_ to show me the truth.” She leaned in close. “But if you’re lying to me, Mark, just know that when I’m angry, I’m scarier than any animatronic out there.” Mark didn’t doubt that for a second.


	8. Chapter 8

**THURSDAY NIGHT**

Charlotte was working the register when Mark arrived for the start of his shift. With her hair tucked under her uniform hat, a few stray black tendrils snaking out and hanging around her face, he wondered if she was going to change before she started the night shift with him. If she wasn’t, how careful was she going to be while wearing her company-issued uniform? Admittedly he hadn’t been very careful in his security jacket, but it hadn’t sustained any damage yet. _Well, the week’s not over yet._  
He knocked on the door to the office, Steven answering just as he always did, a friendly smile on his face. “Evenin’,” he greeted, stepping away to let Mark inside. “What happened to your face? If I can ask.” Right. The cuts and bruises. “I uhm…” He scrambled for an answer. “I got in a fight.” Well that wasn’t entirely a lie. “Whoa, really? I never took you for the fighting type.” Steven laughed a little. “Yeah, I’m not,” Mark laughed back. “But this guy… He uhm – He insulted my girl. You know how it goes.” That, however, was a total lie. “Oh, sure. You good though?” Despite not hanging out at all, Mark had really come to like him, and even consider him a friend. “I’m good. Thank you.” They exchanged smiles. Hopefully Steven considered him a friend too. “How’d the tablet treat you last night?” he asked, motioning toward the little device. “It didn’t get a full charge,” Mark responded. “But I managed.” Steven’s face was guilty. “Oh, I’m sorry. Seriously. I’m gonna replace the cord soon. It’s charging now though, if it’s any consolation. Just, y’know, don’t touch it.” They laughed.

Another knock alerted them of the end of the day and beginning of the night. “Ready?” Charlotte asked when the door opened, tossing the keys to Steven who caught them without a hitch. “It’s his first night closing up all by himself.” She smiled wide and put her hands over her heart. “I’m so proud of him.” He made a face, making them all laugh.  
Once goodbyes had been exchanged and Steven headed out, Mark was left in the office and Charlotte standing in the doorway. He looked at her with a raise of an eyebrow. “You coming in?” he asked curiously. There was a bit of hesitation before she replied, “No one’s normally allowed in here but security.” That reason, he knew now, being the animatronics. He sat down in the roller chair and held his hand out, motioning for her to come inside. “It’s fine. I’m here.” They looked at each other, Mark offering a gentle, reassuring smile. Carefully she stepped inside. “There. See? Not so bad.” The smile on his face widened. Yeah but it’s gonna be, she snapped back internally. After their morning together, Charlotte had promised herself to try and be nicer to him. “What time is it?” she asked as she walked over, keeping her voice steady despite the rising fear.  
As if on cue, the generators shut down and the lights dimmed. “Midnight.”  
Not missing a beat, he started pulling out the box of cassette tapes while she looked at the tablet. “You can look through the camera feeds and stuff, Char. It’s okay,” he said softly, half encouraging and half hoping she’d man the tablet while he listened to the tape. She looked over at him instead, leaning over his shoulder just a little. “What’s all that?” Her sudden curiosity made him smile just a little as he set things up. “A box of voicemail tapes and the machine that plays them. Steven said they were for the night guards,” he explained. Seemingly satisfied with the answer, she moved back and began to fiddle with the tablet. From his peripheral he saw her face wash out in bright white light. “Bonnie’s not on stage,” was her first observation in a voice softened with fear. “She’ll do that. Tap the rooms in the right corner to see the different feeds. You’ll find her.” He pulled out the player and the tapes. It was then that he noticed there was no tape for the fifth night. It made his brows furrow and his stomach lurch. Why was there no fifth night tape? A little yelp came from his side. Found Bonnie. He popped the tape into the player and closed it, hitting the red button. The ringing that preceded each voice message started, making his counterpart jump a little and snap her head around to look on.

_“Hello, hello? Hey! Hey, wow, day 4. I knew you could do it.”_ Charlotte slowly approached Mark’s side again, tablet momentarily forgotten. _“Uh, hey, listen, I may not be around to send you a message tomorrow...” There was the familiar sound of banging, making Mark cover his mouth. “It's- It's been a bad night here for me. Um, I-I'm kinda glad that I recorded my messages for you-”_ The man cleared his throat hastily. _“-Uh, when I did.”_ Though Charlotte didn’t quite understand what was happening just yet, he did. The animatronics were on the attack. _“Uh, hey, do me a favor.”_ More banging. _“Maybe sometime, uh, you could check inside those suits in the back room?”_ The banging was almost drowning out the man’s voice. _“I'm gonna to try to hold out until someone checks. Maybe it won’t be so bad…”_ Two final bangs, then the sound of one of the metal doors opening. _“Uh, I-I-I-I always wondered what was in all those empty heads back there.”_ At first it was quiet, but then a sound steadily grew closer – the all-too-familiar music box jingle played on advertisements that featured Freddy Fazbear. _“You know-”_ A low moan interrupted him. _“Oh, no-”_ The sound of movement followed, an occasional grunt and the distinct sound of something snapping breaking up the muffled noise. A very non-human scream pierced the dark, making both of them jump back. Static followed, then silence.  
Mark looked at the playback machine in terror. Charlotte had both her hands over her mouth. For someone who swore he couldn’t be shaken by anything this place had to throw at him anymore, the shock was laid out plain on his face. The man from the messages was dead because of the animatronics. He might even be stuffed in one of the suits backstage. And they just had to listen to it.

“Oh my god.” He looked back and up at her. “Mark-” Not able to stomach the look on her face or the sight of her shaking body, he looked away. _I shouldn’t have brought her into this. I might’ve been able to handle that message, but she can’t._ “Take the seat. I’ll watch the cameras.” They switched spots – Charlotte sat down heavily in the chair while he stood and grabbed the tablet. Not wasting any time or power, he woke the device and opened up the main lobby’s camera feed, finding Chica standing in the corner. He flipped through the feeds and found Bonnie at the entrance to the bathrooms, Freddy in the supply closet, and Foxy’s head all ready poking out of Pirate Cove.  
“That guy’s dead, isn’t he?” The question made him look at her. She was staring at the voicemail machine. “The animatronics killed him.” For a moment he didn’t answer. “I think so.” That didn’t seem to help – she ran her hands over her face, unshed tears making her eyes glisten. With nothing more to say, he turned his attention back to the cameras. The feeds were all static, meaning the animatronics were moving. “Fuck,” he whispered, making her look up at him. “What?” She stood, peeking over his shoulder. The feeds came back then, Pirate Cove open and empty. “Foxy-” He flipped the camera to the left hallway, the silhouette of the robot fox illuminated by the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. That made her jump just a little. “Charlotte.” Saying her name in such a stern tone instantly got her attention. “Hit the red button on the left door. Now.” She followed his command, bounding over and slapping the button, watching the large metal door slide down into place. “Step back.” She moved back a little and he flipped the camera away from Foxy. Something banged on the closed door repeatedly. It made her yelp loudly and run back behind him. “Please tell me that thing’s gonna hold!” He nodded. “He’ll leave in a second.”  
After a moment, everything went quiet again. “Go hit the white button.” The look she gave him over his shoulder was incredulous. “You go hit the white button!” she replied back, voice a strained whisper. He restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “All right.” He handed the tablet back to her. “If the feeds cut to static, they’re moving. Look for Foxy first. Everyone else can wait.” He approached the door and its two-button panel. He hit the white button, illuminating the outside hallway. He held it, making sure nothing moved, before letting go and opening the metal door. “Clear.”

He turned and looked back at her. “How you doin’?” Walking back, he held out his hands for her to set the tablet in. “I’m terrified.” There was an audible crack in her voice at the end of her sentence; it made him feel even guiltier. “I just listened to a bunch of robots kill someone.” It sounded like she still couldn’t get her head around it. If that was the first tape I listened to, I probably wouldn’t have been able to either. “Hey.” She looked up at him, eyes glossy. “We’re gonna make it. You man the tablet, I can do the doors. Okay? We’re gonna survive.” Despite sounding sure and steady, his insides churned with doubt. “Remember what I said earlier: Foxy first, everyone else later.” She nodded shakily, gripping the tablet tight to her chest.  
The two of them went to work. Charlotte flipped through the cameras, clicking the tablet off when the feeds went to static to save battery. She kept Mark updated with every new movement, and what she didn’t say in words she said in noises. It reminded him of the very first night he worked, all the noises he made in response to seeing the animatronics move for the first time.  
“Mark.” The frightened tone of voice made him look over. “Mark, Freddy’s gone.” He came to her side, different feeds quickly flashing before his eyes. “I can’t – Mark, I can’t find him!” When she got truly terrified, like now, Charlotte’s voice didn’t get louder, but rather dropped to a pitched whisper. Taking a look at the remaining battery and time, he internally cursed. They were down to half a battery and were only halfway through the night. We’re not gonna make it. A loud yelp broke him out of his thoughts. “Found Freddy!” Her voice cracked again. Bringing his gaze to the tablet screen, he too found the animatronic bear, hanging out at the end of the right hallway. “Okay, don’t panic, just-” The cameras cut to static. “I’m panicking, Mark…” He was too. “I’ll get the door.” Even though he didn’t want to go anywhere near the doorway, it was either that or leave it open and risk him getting inside. And once an animatronic was inside, they were a pain to get out.  
Moving as quietly as he could, Mark approached the right doorway, the hallway drowned in inky blackness. He put his hand on a button and pushed, mistakenly lighting the hallway instead of shutting the door. From where he was standing, halfway inside the office and halfway out, he could see Freddy down the hall, frozen in place and mouth hanging open with metal glistening inside. It made his stomach lurch violently, but his body freeze unexpectedly. _Move. Move!_ he screamed at himself, trying to command his body to do something other than stand there with a hand holding down the button and waste battery. He and the robot were locked in a staring contest and he knew if he let go of the light, he’d charge. “Charlotte,” he said quietly, not looking away. “Yeah?” came her response from not far away. “Freddy.” Her breath hitched. “Get ready to fight.” A noise of complaint mixed with fear floated over to him. The chair wasn’t going to hold up against Freddy. He was the biggest out of all of the animatronics. _We don’t stand a chance._  
  
He let go of the button, the hallway darkening. As he moved back, they heard thumping approach quickly. “We don’t have anything to fight with!” His partner didn’t bother keeping her voice quiet now – it was a full yell. “Why didn’t you just shut the door?” The sight of the robotic bear filled the doorway, half-lit by the button panel. Much like the others, he was easily seven feet tall, his fur worn around the joints and stains around his eyes and mouth; the familiar smell of copper and rotting meat snaked into the room.  
Something flew by his ear and cracked into the animatronic’s head. It dropped to the floor in a few pieces; he realized it was the tablet’s plug. _Whatever, it was broken anyways. But where was the corresponding cord?_ And moreover, why did Charlotte decide to be brave and start throwing things _now_? “Bring it on, motherfucker!” Her voice was angry, angrier than he’d ever heard her voice before. Freddy charged.  
Everything that happened next was a blur for Mark – one moment he was watching the killer robot clomp forward to tear them apart, the next moment he was against the desk, hip hurting. He watched from the side as five-foot-five Charlotte took on the seven-foot-tall monstrosity with nothing more than the tablet’s charging cable and shaking hands. He came within armslength of her; she swung the cord out and wrapped it around his hand, grabbing the other end and yanking. The cord snapped like it was twine. _Did she really think that was gonna work?_ The loud curse that rang out told Mark yes. The bear lunged and she kicked out, her foot meeting his chest. It made him stumble back and her teeter until she slammed into the ground butt-first.  
It was then that he saw an opening: Freddy had stumbled far enough away to land him in the hallway. Mark ran forward to shut him out, not quite catching sight of the bear righting itself. However, from the ground, Charlotte could see it – one step more was going to get him dragged off to who-knows-where to be killed. It made her scramble to her feet and run to his side just as the robot lunged, a weird sounding sort of war cry tearing from her throat. The robot faltered, as if it didn’t know what to do against more than one person.  
A paw as big as her face missed her completely and went straight for her friend, making her lurch back reflexively and one of the robot’s sharp protruding pieces catching her uniform and tearing it, just barely grazing her skin in the process. Mark’s cry of pain at the exposed joints digging into his skin made Charlotte angry, and her anger made back up a few steps and shout, “Hey!” Nothing. Freddy was still giving Mark his undivided attention, paw squeezing his arm tighter and tighter, earning more pained noises in response. She picked up a piece of the broken tablet charger and chucked it at the robot’s head, watching it make contact and bounce off. The fact that she couldn’t do much more just made her angrier, picking up the wire wastebasket sitting near the desk and chucking that too, watching it spew garbage and make direct contact with the head of the animatronic. That got his attention. “’Sup, Fazfuck,” she greeted loudly as he looked at her, fire in her voice. “You wanna play?” With the spotlight on her, Charlotte realized she didn’t have a plan. _Oh well. If someone does die, better it me than him,_ she decided. She and the bear ran at each other; she kicked him square in the chest again, letting him stumble back into the darkness. This time she didn’t falter, landing tall on both feet.  
Mark ran up from just behind her and slammed both hands onto the red button before the animatronic realized what was happening. The door slid down and shut firmly. A few loud bangs reverberated through the door, protest at the obstacle now between him and the pair, but then silence overcame and mingled with their panting.

They both looked at each other.  
“You okay?”  
“What the hell was that?”  
The two of them spoke at the same time, then stopped. Mark gestured for her to go first. “You okay?” she repeated. He looked at where Freddy grabbed him, purple warping his tanned skin. “Yeah. I’ll make it.” He took a good look at her. “How about you? Your foot okay?” Without any hesitation she answered. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” They looked at each other. “You sure?” Charlotte’s wrath was something he hoped he’d never have to be on the receiving end of. She hesitated, but nodded. “I’ll be fine.” There was a gentle emphasis on the ‘be’ part of her statement. “Let’s get back to work.” She patted him on the shoulder, ending their conversation.  
Taking a seat and grabbing the tablet, Mark scooted up to the desk and woke the device, finding them within the five o’clock hour but at ten percent battery. He looked over, finding Charlotte picking up the broken pieces of the charger, grabbing the wastebasket she threw earlier and tossing everything into it. Do I tell her that we’re not going to make it? As he watched her clean up the mess he struggled with the decision. _If I tell her, she’ll have time to accept it. But if I don’t, she might just come to terms with it when it happens._ “Charlie.” She looked up at him. “Yeah?” Her voice was soft, warmed by the embers left over from her anger’s fire. There was a moment of silence between the two of them. “There’s a piece behind your foot.” She looked down and picked up a broken piece of charger. “Oh. Thank you.” _We’ll handle it together in due time._  
He clicked through the camera feeds, keeping watch on each of the animatronics. Though Chica was stalking the end of the right hallway, she didn’t make any movement to come down. Freddy had disappeared to the supply closet again, Bonnie was hanging around the main lobby, and Foxy was frozen, peeking out through the curtains of Pirate Cove. The night was almost over, sure, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still at risk. The battery was slowly draining away as he watched. At five percent, he shut it off. “You need help cleaning up?” He set down the tablet on the desktop and disregarded the tablet, the uncomfortable feeling that things were going to get really bad settling in his stomach. “Sure.” Other than the mess they made, there was trash from when she threw the basket across the room scattered across the floor. Together they straightened up the office, picking up the trash and dusting off what they could with leftover napkins and the tails of their shirts. A comfortable silence had fallen over them. _It could be worse. We’re gonna die together. Maybe they’ll do it at the same time, so we won’t have to watch one another die._ He didn’t want to watch her die. He had come to like her too much.  
  
Just as they finished up, tossing the last ball of paper into the basket, the lights went out and the right door opened. A little noise escaped her, half confused and half surprised. The sound of another generator shutting down followed, making her look up at the ceiling as if it had the answer to her confusion. _I’m sorry,_ he said to her in his head. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could just make out Charlotte’s silhouette. “Mark?” Her voice was wavering. “I’m here.” I’m not gonna leave you. “I’m scared,” she whispered with an audible break in her voice. The armor that had been forged by the heat of her anger was melting. It took him a moment of feeling around in the dark to find her hand; once he did, he took it and held on, feeling her shake. He was scared too. “I’m right here.”  
They stood still in the middle of the room, hands entwined, watching the doorways for any sudden movement. Though there was no movement at first, the far-away sound of Freddy Fazbear’s signature jingle echoed back into the security office. Charlotte drew a sharp breath in, gripping Mark’s hand tighter. The song got louder, the muffled thumps of movement matching every beat. Then suddenly, all was quiet. Now he was shaking, starting in his knees and spreading through the rest of his body. In the darkness of the left doorway a pair of robot eyes flickered to light, the jingle starting again. Freddy had come to exact his revenge.  
Before the animatronic took its first step inside, the loud sound of bell chimes rang through the restaurant. Charlotte jumped violently; Mark drew a breath in and held it, not knowing if it would save them. The bells continued, ringing in the six o’clock hour; the light behind Freddy’s eyes flickered off, and they listened as he retreated back to the stage. Slowly the light of dawn filtered inside. The two of them stared at the doorway, seeing it glow with the gray of the morning, paralyzed.  
Mark regained his composure first. Slowly he walked toward the office’s exit, keeping as calm a demeanor as he could. He was yanked back suddenly by the hand. Looking back at Charlotte, he found her hand still in his and her face unreadable. She yanked him again, this time hard enough to make him stumble back to her; when their bodies collided, she wrapped her arms around his stomach and held him close, head buried in his chest. _Oh. She wanted a hug._ A moment later he felt dampness seep through his shirt. _No. She’s crying._ With the realization hitting him, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, feeling her chest heave and her muffled sobs vibrate into his chest. It was a cry that made up for not crying at all the past six hours, a cry that was angry, scared, and relieved all at the same time. It was a cry that wracked her whole body and broke his heart.  
With no words to say, all he could do was hold onto her and let the storm run its course.


	9. Friday Late Evening

**FRIDAY LATE EVENING**

Throughout the day, people had asked Charlotte if she was okay. Thankfully no one had found out about her stay at the restaurant, but it was written plain on her face that she’d had a long night. Dark circles had formed under her eyes; the look she wore resembled that of a child who was about to cry. On more than one occasion she was caught leaning on counters or against walls dozing off. When anyone asked her what had kept her up, she lied and said it was just a rough night getting to sleep. Truthfully, she hadn’t had any sleep in over twelve hours. When she had gotten home after the night shift, she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing Freddy or Foxy burned into the dark of her eyelids.  
Mark walked through the double-doors of the pizzeria at eleven o’clock, security jacket slung over his arm and dressed in the uniform white t-shirt and jeans. In his hand was a manila folder filled with papers. He caught sight of his friend from across the lobby, using a little push vacuum to clean under a set of party tables. Even from where he was standing he could see she was tired, her movements sluggish and a hand reaching up to rub her eyes. “Hey Charlie,” he greeted softly as he approached her, making her look up. That’s when he noticed her look, like she was teetering on the brink of a total breakdown. “Hi,” she greeted back with a yawn. “You’re here early.” He nodded toward the hand holding the folder. “I’ve got some stuff I wanna show you.” About last night, he silently added. “Maybe another time Mark. I’m really busy.” She looked away, back down at the vacuum. Her tone was more than just tired. It took him a moment to figure out that she was trying to avoid him. “Wait, Charlotte-” _Don’t shut me out again. We were supposed to be in this together._ “I just gotta finish cleaning, and I gotta wipe down the counters, and the salad bar, and-“  
“Stop lying to me.” She looked up at him, and through the haze of sleepiness he could see something spark to life. “Tell me why you don’t want to hear this.” There was an edge to his voice; she responded with the same fierceness. “Because I just don’t want to.” And just like that, her walls were up.

It didn’t matter. He’d take a chisel and carve away at the bricks until he got to her again. “There’s more to it. Why’re you shutting me out again?” Mark sounded genuinely hurt and confused, hurting her. “I thought last night would make you believe in me.” Not letting go of his gaze, Charlotte’s eyes softened. “I do believe you, Mark. You wanted that, and now you’ve got it. Now, please, just leave me alone.” She was trying to get out of it. “Why?” He wasn’t going to let her go. “Because!” Her voice raised dramatically, the anger from last night flashing across her face. But she pulled back, lowering her voice to a more moderate volume. “You asked for one night to make me believe in you. _One night_. You got your one night, and you got me to believe you. I believe the animatronics are moving and alive. I believe that they’re out for blood. I believe you and every other goddamn security guard who told me about it. Okay? You got what you wanted. I don’t need to be convinced anymore by doing it again.” The fact that she could tell that was what he was going to ask wasn’t surprising.  
“Okay! Fine! I won’t make you stay the night again. But I need you to listen to this.” Her mouth opened to refuse, but he cut in. “Please Charlotte. You’re the only one that’ll listen and believe me. I need someone to hear this.” The entire day he spent researching and working on what was in the folder and he didn’t want it to go to waste. They held each other’s gaze for a moment before she looked away, parking the little push vacuum against the table she was cleaning under. “Fine. What’ve you got?” Pulling out the bright orange chair, she sat down heavily, him taking the seat across from her, setting his jacket in his lap, and putting the folder on the table.

“It’s like a puzzle.” He opened the folder as he began his explanation, spreading out the sheets he had printed out from online. “The Missing Children Incident, The Bite, the smells and stains, the animatronics moving and attacking the night guards. They’re all pieces to make up the bigger picture.” Mark slid a page of his handwritten notes over to her. Scanning them quietly, he kept going. “The childrens’ bodies were never found after the guy said he murdered them. Everyone went with cannibalism. But when they brought the guy in and sent him through processing, they didn’t find anything in his stomach.” Charlotte looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “The kids’ bodies were stuffed into the suits.” She put his notes down and leaned forward, disbelief written all over her face. “Six kids went missing, Mark. There are only four animatronics.” He shook his head. “Not backstage there isn’t.” That made her lean back. “Those kids were killed backstage and stuffed into the suits. No one ever found their bodies. That’s why-” He gestured to an article in front of her. “The suits smell like rotting meat and copper. It’s flesh and blood. And the stains around the eyes, nose, and mouth?” They caught each other’s eyes. “That’s blood too,” she finished, voice quiet, and he nodded.  
A moment of silence passed over them. “Okay,” Charlotte said slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. “So, the dead kids are the reason for the smell and stains. What about The Bite? And the attacks?” A moment of shuffling earned her another news article. “The Bite of ’87 happened three years after the kids died. Right before The Bite was when the first complaint was filed to management about the look and smell of the animatronics,” he explained. Her expectant face told him to continue. “Foxy didn’t bite the guy because of the malfunctioning AI. Malfunctioning AI wasn’t the reason at all.” Slipping the paper out of her hand, he replaced it with one on The Bite. “He did it because of the dead kid inside of him.” She put the article down, eyebrows furrowed and the look of doubt back on her face. “How could the kid-” She paused, thinking. “Are you saying it’s _ghosts_?”  
“Look, I know it sounds crazy-”  
“Mark, seriously? _Ghosts_?”  
“Just hear me out!” he pleaded, voice rising just slightly with desperation. “I worked all day on this, Charlotte. I know what I’m talking about!” He would resort to begging if he had to. “Fine. Go ahead. Can’t be any crazier than anything else that’s happened.” Though her face and tone of voice didn’t seem convincing, he continued. “The kid took over the AI, and lived on in the suit after he died. And when the drunk guy grabbed him, he thought it was his murderer. The bite was a defense mechanism. Grabbing his arm freaked the kid out. He thought he was gonna get hurt again.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, but he went on, afraid if he stopped, she’d stop listening. “All of the animatronics going after to the night guards, they’re possessed by the spirits of the kids. They won’t leave because that’s where they were laid to rest.” He pushed another news article toward her, about the kids. “All of their parents collectively decided to not give them any sort of burial. They didn’t want to go through the pain of burying their child.” All of them were under ten, according to the article that she scanned. _It would make sense. I wouldn’t want to have to bury my baby either. That’s all they were. They were just babies._ “Why the night guards though? Why not everyone that comes to the pizzeria?” she asked, looking up at him. Mark paused, more for dramatic effect than anything. “Because the guy that murdered them _was a night guard_.” Her green eyes widened just a bit. “Long before you and the night guards you dealt with, before me, probably even before the guy from the voice messages.” He leaned forward; she did too. “These kids, their spirits are pissed. Any night guard to them is their killer. So they go after anyone in the security office after midnight.” It made enough sense for Charlotte to lean back into her chair again and look at the wall above Mark’s head, quietly processing everything he had told her.

“I’m gonna finish the week out.” The fact that he sounded so sure made her glance at him. “I’m gonna try and give these kids closure, show them that I’m not who killed them, y’know? A couple nights ago, Foxy – He acted as if he understood me. Maybe the kids are still there, and they just gotta be convinced.” _And if I can convince you to risk your life against a bunch of bloodthirsty, haunted animatronics, I can convince anyone of anything._ “No one’s ever made it to the fifth night. Everyone’s stopped at the forth. Even the murderer-”  
She cut in. “No.” He looked back at her, thick brows knitted together. “We had one guy make it through all five nights.” It sounded like she was around to see it. “What happened to him?” he asked, a bad feeling swamping his insides. She didn’t look at him as she answered. “He quit. Then killed himself three days later.” And she was there to deal with that? “He said in his note that the he was having nightmares. They wouldn’t stop after he quit. They just kept getting worse. He kept seeing a golden Freddy Fazbear in his dreams, hearing kids scream and cry, seeing mutilated childrens’ bodies. Said it didn’t stop when he woke up. So he had to put a stop to it on his own.” Her voice was cold, eyes far away. “Charlotte, I’m-” She cut him off before he could say any more. “ _Don’t._ I’ve heard that enough. His family, management, the company, grief counselors. I didn’t care enough about Greg to really get affected.” She paused. “The only reason why it still hurts is because he told me about it and I didn’t listen.” So she didn’t report this Greg guy. She straight-up ignored him until he went to Manny himself.

“So you’re gonna finish the week out,” she said, promptly changing the subject. “I want to, yeah. But…” He trailed off and looked at her, sincerity and desperation in his brown eyes. “I don’t want to do it without you.”  
“What did I tell you earlier? No. I’m not doing that again.”  
“Why?”  
“You asked for one night. I gave you one night. And, y’know the fact that I almost died.”  
“I’ve almost died every night since starting the night shift and you don’t see me backing out.”  
“Maybe that’s because you’re braver than I am!” Her voice had risen again, and this time she didn’t try to keep it down. A tense beat of silence passed between them. “Maybe I’m just too scared.” Charlotte sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, tucking into herself and reminding him of a turtle. “Charlie, I’m scared too.” He looked at her, but she didn’t look back. “I’m afraid for my life every night. But…” He trailed off, wondering if what he wanted to say was going to cross some sort of line. “But I think about the morning, and you knocking on the door, and I get less scared.” She looked at him finally, arms still crossed over her chest and trepidation in her eyes. “You make things easier. It’s not that I don’t want to do this alone anymore. I don’t want to do it _without you_.” In just a few days, he had come to care about her so much that it surprised him when he heard these words come out of his mouth. “You’re my friend, Charlie. One of the best I have. And you believe me. You’ve been through the night shift with me. I need you.” He needed her, but he also wished he had never brought her into this in the first place. She didn’t deserve this sort of fear, especially with what she had gone through with everyone before him. Charlotte, on the other side of the table, wished that he had never taken the job. While she sat quietly and thought, she knew that he didn’t deserve to see or experience anything he had. She should’ve worked harder at scaring him off, been meaner and colder. Maybe that would’ve saved him like it did some of the others.  
But they were together now, sitting and deciding on what to do on the final night. “You’re one of my only friends, y’know,” she said softly. “You’re one of the few that actually tried to be nice, and kept being nice despite my attitude.” Though it wasn’t quite as explicit as his outpouring of feelings, the underlying message that she cared about him too made his chest ache with gratitude. “And then you wrap me up with all this…” She gestured to the papers scattered on the table. “I have nowhere else to go. If I take this information anywhere, it’s gonna land me in a straightjacket like the others.” Though her voice sounded resigned, there was warmth to it that promised her full effort. “I’m stuck in this death trap, and you’re stuck with me, until we figure this out.”  
 _At least we’re doing it together_ , they both thought.


	10. Friday Night

**FRIDAY NIGHT**

Instead of leaving for home, Mark decided to spend the remainder of his time at the table going over his findings. As Charlotte finished up cleaning, occasionally pausing to yawn, the minutes ticked on toward midnight. When she finished, she picked up the small vacuum, whistling to alert him. He gathered his things and walked back with her, stopping at the supply closet to drop off her cleaning supply.  
The pair walked to the door, Mark knocking firmly. Steven answered, as he always did, and let him inside. “So, fifth night, huh?” Steven handed the tablet over to the other boy. “That’s a hell of an achievement, considering you’re a night guard.” He nodded, smiling sheepishly. “Think you’ll make it okay tonight?” With the cut on his forehead healing and the bruises almost gone from his face, he looked like he’d make it. But with his friend by his side, he knew he’d survive. “Yeah. It’ll be a breeze.”  
“You’re closing again.” Charlotte dug out the keys from her uniform pocket and tossed them to Steven. With a nod of thanks, Steven walked over to him and held out his hand. “Good luck, man.” They shook hands, smiling at each other. “Thanks,” Mark responded. “I’ll see you in the morning, Char?” She nodded, waving a little. He waved back, taking one last look at them before heading out.

When he had gone, Charlotte let out a large yawn as she stepped inside. “You gonna be okay?” Mark asked, watching as she rubbed her eye like a small child. “Yeah. I’ll be good.” He continued to look at her. “You can still leave. It isn’t midnight yet.” The familiar look telling him to shut his mouth flashed across her face. “Sorry.” He looked away, resisting the urge to smile. He didn’t like the fact that he had gotten her involved, but he was glad he had someone, and he was glad that someone was her.  
At the stroke of midnight, the all-too-familiar sounds of the generators shutting down echoed through the darkened air. Lit by only the lights from the button panel and the tablet, the two of them got to situating themselves. As Mark sat down in his chair and started up the tablet, Charlotte stood behind him, waiting for the first instruction. “Bonnie’s gone.” She was always the first to move. “She’s backstage.” A moment of silence before the sound of static filled the air. She looked over his shoulder to see the feeds coming back online “Chica’s moving.” The main lobby was empty, backstage was occupied by the bunny, and Chica had found herself a spot in the supply closet. “I see her,” she said. “What about Freddy? And Foxy?” Mark clicked back to the main stage, now totally empty. “Freddy’s moving. He’s-” He flipped feeds. “- In the main dining area. And Foxy…” He flipped through the feeds again, finding the pirate fox peeking out through the curtains. “Is still on stage.” So the most pressing issue was the chicken. She was closest, not far from the left hallway. “Tell me what I gotta do,” she said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder.  
Just then, the feeds went to static. The two of them looked on at the tablet, watching as the battery hit an even eighty percent. “Get ready to shut the left door if I say.” With a single nod, she quietly walked over to the left doorway, hand on the red button. The sound of static faded, and she watched as he flipped through the camera feeds, the light of the screen flashing across his face again and again. In the darkness she could hear the far-away sound of metal dragging across the tiles of the hallway and the linoleum floor of the main lobby. “Anything?” she asked. “Not yet. Stay there though. Bonnie’s at the end of the hallway.” So she waited, quietly and attentively, with her hand on the red button.  
The loud sound of metal hitting the floor made the both of them jump. “Do I-?” Mark looked at the right doorway, standing suddenly. “Someone’s in the kitchen.” They waited, then it happened again – the distinct sound of pots and pans clattering against the tile floor. “Chica’s in the kitchen.” He quickly made his way to the right door. Despite the gravity of the situation, Charlotte couldn’t help but think of the children’s rhyme, about someone being in the kitchen with a woman named Dinah. The sound of the right door sliding down and hitting the floor made her look at Mark, hand pressed firmly on the red button.

Slowly he walked away from the door, walking backwards rather than turning his back on it. She moved after a moment as well, walking away from the empty left hallway. “You hear something?” She nodded her head to the closed door. He nodded, handing her the tablet. “Wanna try?” With a little shrug of her shoulder, she took it, sitting down and waking it. As she clicked through the feeds he watched over her shoulder. “Chica’s at the end of the hallway.” Good thing we shut the door then. “Bonnie’s by the bathrooms. Freddy is backstage.” The main trio didn’t seem to be a huge threat at the moment for some reason. It’s almost two. Shouldn’t they be, like, crazy active by now? He was expecting more from the animatronics. “What about Foxy?” He looked over her shoulder again and watched her flip to Pirate Cove’s camera feed. “Still just peeking out,” she responded, equally confused.  
Charlotte put the device to sleep and looked up, freezing. “Mark.” He looked over, seeing her staring at the expanse of darkness that was the left doorway. “Do you uhm – Do you see-?” Following her gaze, he saw nothing but the empty space. “I don’t see anything Char. What do you-?” _Oh no. Is she seeing what I think she’s seeing?_  
Though he couldn’t see it, through her eyes the unmistakable suit of a Freddy Fazbear sat upright, faded gold fur dirty and stained with what she could only conclude was blood. “How did he get there?” she asked, tablet and other animatronics forgotten. She seemed transfixed on the thing, much like he had been before the screaming and crying had started. “Charlie, you need to look away.” She’d start hearing things any second, her vision would go black around the edges, and even if she curled into a fetal position and tried to close her eyes, she’d still see the golden Freddy leering at her. _He must be why all of the other animatronics didn’t get near us. They knew he was coming._ “Charlotte. Look away.” But she didn’t. She continued staring on at the doorway, him knowing that there was something there and that there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was going to try pleading one more time to get her look away, but before he could even open his mouth, Charlotte stood, tablet clattering to the floor. Mark scrambled and picked it up, clicking it on to see that it still worked but its screen shattered. _Dammit. How do we explain this to Steven?_ “Charlie, what’re you-?” He watched her walk over to the left doorway and stop just before it.  
“It’s me.” She sounded nothing like herself, her voice dropping an octave and going eerily calm; those two simple words sent a chill down his spine. He didn’t speak when he saw the golden Freddy. Why was it suddenly channeling itself into Charlotte? Was it just to further frighten him? _If frightening me is the thing’s main goal, it’s achieving it._ Her head twitched. “It’s me.” She sounded relieved. Did it just possess her? “No it’s not,” he said, voice shaky but loud. His sudden response made her head turn a fraction. “That’s my friend. Her name is Charlotte. You leave her alone.” A drop of blood slid from Charlotte’s nose and down her upper lip, but she seemed unfazed. “She’s not one of your victims. We’re not those kids.” More blood bloomed from her nose as her head twitched again, more violently this time. If he provoked her, whatever had a hold of her head had a hold of her brain; it could kill her if he wasn’t careful. She lifted a hand and pressed the red button, closing the door. _He’s doing it to waste power._ The thought made his stomach lurch. “Go away,” he said quietly, feeling like a helpless child. She turned and fully looked at him, not the girl he knew. He saw Freddy’s blue eyes instead, a glassy, uncanny rendition of human eyes that seemed to have replaced her otherwise normal hazel eyes. “I’ll come back. I always do.”  
A loud bang echoed through the security office, the sound reverberating off the walls and against both of the closed doors. Someone – or something – had hit the door. It made him jump and her blink, snapping out of whatever had a hold on her. “Mark-?” She touched her nose gingerly, fingertips coming away slicked in crimson. “What-?” He and her locked eyes, confusion written plain on her face. They were back to their normal shade. “You’re fine. Get away from the door!” His sudden panicky tone made her sprint over to his side, momentarily forgetting about her bloody nose. He clicked on the tablet screen, their battery down to thirty percent and the time at four in the morning. “What happened to the tablet screen?” she asked, making him look back at her. How much does she not remember? “You dropped it,” he replied simply. Though her dark eyebrows knitted together, he looked away, effectively dropping the subject.  
Flipping through each of the camera feeds he asked, “Open the door for me?” She nodded, wiping the blood from her nose on the sleeve of her uniform as she walked over to the left door, hitting the red button. The door slid open and she let out a shriek. Mark caught sight of her staring up at Chica, the top of her head only coming up to the chicken’s chest, making him gasp out loud as well. He tossed the tablet onto the desktop and watched as she feebly kept hitting the red button, trying to make the door close. But Chica had stepped inside and was holding the door open with her wing, her white ' **LET’S EAT!!!** ' bib a grim foretelling of what was to come.

Giving the girl no time to react, the animatronic bent down and buried its two sets of teeth into the meat of her shoulder. A loud scream rang out, followed by the repeated banging of an open hand against hollow metal as Charlotte tried to beat the chicken away with her free hand. She struggled to release herself, only drawing blood and soaking the inside of the robot’s mouth in it. The sight of his friend bleeding made Mark spring into action – he ran forward and mimicked her move from the night before, kicking the robot square in the stomach, pain shooting up his leg. But it got the reaction he wanted: it tore out of his friend and directed its attention to him, closing its bloodied mouth and pecking at him. Covering his head with his arms, it was as if a needle was repeatedly stabbing into his flesh, leaving behind small pinpricks of blood and reddened skin. He righted himself and went again, doing his best to not let it faze him, kicking the robot in the stomach and unpinning it from the doorway. Chica stumbled back and Charlotte hit the red button, finally having the metal door slide down into place. The chicken outside slammed into it a few times out of anger, then retreated, leaving the two breathing hard and bleeding.  
Then the distinct sound of sniffling came from just behind him and he turned, seeing his friend with tears running down her cheeks. It looked to be just as much out of fear as it was out of pain. Charlotte’s shoulder had been thoroughly injured, uniform torn to reveal deep, bloody teeth marks branded into her skin. She didn’t move, standing in the middle of the office cradling her injured shoulder, shaking violently as the adrenaline pumped through her body. _Don’t ask if she’s okay. She’s not okay._ Mark wasn’t in much better shape – the foot that he had kicked the robot with was beginning to ache, and long, thin red ribbons of blood ran down and wrapped around his arms and dripped off his fingers. Testing out his foot first, he found he couldn’t much pressure on it without pain crawling up his leg and making his knee go weak. However, his hand still worked, but if he tensed his muscles it bled more and stung. “Can you walk?” he asked her as he looked up, finding his voice gravelly. She looked up at him, eyesight blurry, and nodded. “C’mere.” He waved her over with his uninjured arm, leaving his hurt one dead at his side. She walked over to him, stopping just before him instead of burying her face in his chest like she wanted to. Respecting her decision, he wiped the tears and sweat from her cheeks gently instead, knowing he no doubt had the same smeared across his face. It only brought more tears to her eyes. “It’s all right. It’s over now.” Though he didn’t know how much longer they had, he had a feeling that the worst had definitely been dealt with. “Sit down. I’ll handle everything from here.” She didn’t protest, shuffling over to the blue-upholstered rolling chair and sitting down, holding the arm attached to her hurt shoulder close to her chest, tears still silently falling.

Leaving the tablet on the desktop, he woke it to find five percent battery remaining and it only half past five. With both doors closed he knew it was a huge waste of power, but the thought of opening either of them made his stomach lurch. So he left everything alone, turning off the tablet too, conserving what little power they had left. _Dying doesn’t seem so bad right now honestly_ , he thought to himself, tears springing to his eyes at how easily he had come to accept his fate. _They’ll make it quick. They won’t want us to suffer like they did._ “Hey Mark?” came Charlotte’s voice, soft and broken. “Yeah Charlotte?” he responded, looking over at her, finding her looking back. “Thank you. For everything.” She paused. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.” He let the tears fall at her statement, the weight of her words finally pressing into his skin. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you too,” he repeated, voice breaking at the end.  
The lights went out.  
Gingerly she stood, legs shaking like a newborn foal’s, and crossed the small distance between them, tucking her face into his neck as a sign of affection, not able to hug him. The doors slid up and all of the darkness melted together, making him tuck his face into her neck as well, breathing in the sharp smell of sweat mixed with her shampoo. _I’m dying on my own terms, with a good friend by my side. It’ll be quick and painless. It could be worse._ The sound of metal scraping against tile filled the air, Freddy’s music-box jingle beginning. Mark watched the left doorway; Charlotte kept her head tucked in the crook of his neck, not wanting to watch the right doorway and possibly give the animatronic the satisfaction of seeing her scared.  
As the song got louder, he wrapped his uninjured arm around her, pulling her closer but still making sure to not hurt her any further. _It’ll be okay_ , she thought, resigning to her fate. _The kids will make it quick. They won’t make us suffer._ Part of her wanted to apologize to the kids, promise them a proper burial and service, something that their parents didn’t have the heart to do. They deserved that much. The music was just outside one of the doors now; Charlotte peeked out to see a pair of human-like eyes staring back at her from the right doorway. “Mark,” she whispered. “He’s here.” Her friend tensed. The jingle looped, playing one more time for the pair to hear at full volume and with full understanding of what was to come.  
Silence engulfed the room, only broken up by their shallow breathing and the muffled sound of mechanical clicking. He made no sudden movement, which made her think he wasn’t going to attack. But then Freddy slowly tromped forward, nothing but a looming silhouette taking up all of her eyesight, brightly-lit blue eyes the only light in the entire office. He felt so much bigger in the dark. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, blocking out the smell of blood and rotting flesh that he brought with him, and Mark did the same.  
_Goodbye Charlotte._  
_Goodbye Mark._

The tense moment was broken by the ringing of bells. Neither of them moved, not trusting the clock to call the animatronic back to stage. But as they kept going, ringing in the hour, they heard the robot move away, its sounds fading into the shimmering gray light of morning. Six single bells chimed, marking it six o’clock in the morning.  
Nothing but silence remained. The two of them were too frightened and in pain to make any sudden movements, so they stood still, holding each other, breathing in deep, broken breaths. Both of them tried to keep their composure, but the tears came at the first sight of light almost in tandem, falling from their eyes quickly out of relief. Mark kept it to heavy hiccups, letting Charlotte sob openly for the both of them. They did, however, share a smile despite the tears once they pulled away and looked at each other; one that brightened the morning, chasing away the terrors of the last five nights without mercy.


	11. Saturday Morning

**SATURDAY MORNING**

When the two of them managed to pull away from one another and start out of the security office – Charlotte cradling her bitten bloody shoulder and Mark limping, one arm hanging basically dead at his side – they came face-to-face with something scarier than possessed animatronics and murderous hallucinations.  
Their boss, Manny, standing at the door, arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face.  
Manny was someone who never got angry, especially at his employees. He was a fairly reasonable man who was known more for his jokes than his temper. But the moment the two of them locked eyes with their manager, they knew they were in trouble. And though his scowl broke for a moment to show a mixture of emotions hidden underneath – confusion, fear, surprise, and most of all, for some reason, guilt – he reset it quickly to ensure they knew he meant business.  
“You two. My office. Now.”  
The pair followed behind the stout gentleman as he led them to his office, which was across the main lobby near the main stage. Both of them knew they were a mess – sweaty, bloodied and injured, hair a mess; eyes puffy from crying – which probably made their case even worse. Neither of them looked at the animatronics as they passed the main stage. “Charlotte first,” Manny said as he pushed the door to his office open for the girl. She walked inside, letting him close the door behind her, not bothering to sit down.

“What the hell happened to you two?” were the first words out of her manager’s mouth, not angry, but rather confused and scared. He sounded so much like her father when she used to come to him crying about bullies at school. Manny took a seat behind his desk, which was covered in papers and file folders of all different kinds. “You come out of the security office with a torn up shoulder and he comes out with blood all down his arms. You both look like you’ve been crying. Hair a mess, face a mess. You’re not even supposed to be _in there_ , Charlie!” He leaned forward. “What happened last night?” For a moment their eyes locked, and she swore she could tell him the truth. She swore she could tell him everything that Mark had told her, recount last night in full detail and have him believe her. His fatherly instincts were showing, making her soft around the edges. “Do you want the truth?” she asked, her roughened voice surprising the both of them. “It’s gonna sound crazy, the truth, but I’ll lay it all out for you. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you everything. But you’ll have to just trust me and my word, and believe what I say.” She paused. “Or do you want some bullshit excuse you can put on record that’ll give you some justification for firing me?” That made him sit back. “I want the truth, Charlotte.” Another pause, this one longer, the two of them looking at each other. _Are you ready to lose your job?_ She asked herself. _Are you ready for a pink slip? Are you ready to be blackballed by every restaurant chain in the country?_ The thought of not having to work another restaurant ever again didn’t sound like a bad proposition. _Will Manny cart you off to a mental hospital like he did to the other night guards you reported to him?_ She opened her mouth, hoping that question could answer itself, and began.

Starting from the Missing Children Incident and working her way through The Bite, the reports, and how it all tied in with them losing so many night guards, she wove a true horror story, not caring what he had heard before. When she started talking about Mark, retelling his part of the story and how it entwined with her own, she felt just a small pang of worry. _He’s going to lose his job too, sure, but where’s he going to end up after this? Is he going to be transferred to another Freddy Fazbear’s, or is he going to be blacklisted too?_ She continued on, finally recounting the last two nights she spent at the pizzeria, rushing through the parts that were hard to talk about. She talked about the injuries both her and him sustained, which of the animatronics had dealt them, and how they fought them off together.  
Finally, she laid everything out, explaining in detail the theory of the dead children possessing the animatronics, the golden Freddy hallucination, and telling him what Mark had told her he had heard and seen, not remembering anything about her encounter with the apparition. The entire time Manny was silent, listening quietly and remaining impassive, keeping his face unreadable.  
Once Charlotte finished, it was quiet for a long time. The silence gave her a moment to think. _I hated throwing Mark’s name in there so much_ , she realized. _It felt like I was trying to blame him for all this._ Neither of them were to blame; she knew that.

“You know,” her manager said finally. “The last night guard who made it all five nights, the one who killed himself, he came to me saying the exact same things you’re saying to me now.” Her heart hammered against her ribcage, this information new to her. “Killer animatronics. Dead children possessing the suits. A golden-furred Freddy Fazbear hallucination…” He trailed off, not looking at her, but staring off in thought. “And all the other night guards, the ones that came to me, the ones you reported to me, talked about moving animatronics. Some even mentioned them being out for blood.” He shook his head, but it sounded like he believed her and Mark. The thought made her breath come up short. “I’m not a very religious man, Charlotte. But I do believe in a sort of afterlife. I believe in spirits of a sort. I believe that some lives aren’t done when they die.” He looked at her. “You said they never found the kids bodies, or their murderer. So it’d make sense, in a really sick and weird sort of way.” He shook his head, leaning forward. “But…” He sounded guilt-stricken. _Here we go_ , she thought to herself. “The rest of the world isn’t quite as open-minded as me. This sort of information, this theory, it won’t hold up anywhere. I can’t do anything. Killer animatronics possessed by scared and vengeful dead children won’t hold up in something like a court of law.” He motioned to her injured shoulder. “That’s going to land the company in a lot of hot water, but if you try and justify it with what you just told me? You think we were excommunicated before...” She looked down at the arm she was cradling, the streaks of dirt and blood darkening her light skin. “You realize I have to fire you, right?” he asked, genuine sorrow in his tone. “Yeah, I know,” she replied, looking back up at him. “I’ll put it under clocking in for overtime without it being scheduled, or something.” He pulled out a pad of pink slips and a pen from a drawer, beginning the process.  
“Listen, I know I’m basically in no position to be asking anything of you-” That earned her a little smirk. “-But can you not fire Mark?” That made Manny pause. “I have to, Charlie.” He resumed writing. “You really don’t. Listen, he – He’s a good guy. He’s got a heart of gold. He doesn’t deserve to lose his job and get blacklisted because of me.” As he finished up filling out her pink slip, Charlotte kept going. “Transfer him. Put him in a place without animatronics. Let him be a night guard in a place that won’t fucking kill him. He deserves that much.” The two of them looked at each other. “He deserves a second shot at a proper job.” He held the pink slip out for her to take and sign, seemingly ignoring her request. “Your last check will be direct deposited.” She signed it - her uninjured hand not her normal writing hand, which made her signature come out shaky and squished together – and handed it back to him. He tore off her copy, it a much brighter shade of pink, and nodded to the door. “Let Mark in.” She stuffed her pink slip in her pocket and turned, heading out by opening the door with her foot, the memory of kicking Freddy in the chest coming back to her. The door swung open and it stopped, Mark grabbing it to keep it open before it swung back. “You’re up,” she said, smiling encouragingly, trying to keep a false sense of hopefulness. He nodded shakily and limped into the office, letting the door shut behind him.

A moment of silence passed between the two before Manny announced, “You’re being transferred.” It made Mark’s heart skip a beat. “There’s a Freddy Fazbear’s not far from here. You’ll be their new night guard. It’s got an arcade rather than animatronics. Good hours, proper insurance, you know. I’ve got all the papers in front of me, right here.” The manager motioned to the small packet in front of him. “You deserve a proper shot a job.” The fact that he wasn’t going to be fired made his chest tight. “Manny, I – Thank you, Manny. I – God, I can’t thank you enough,” he said, voice a bit strained. Though the older man smiled, he replied, “Well, don’t thank me. Charlotte’s the one that fought for you to keep a job with us.” That made his chest tighten further. It astounded him how much she had come to care about him in just a few short days. Well, risking your life with someone will do that. “I need to warn you though, Mark.” The tone shifted back to serious. “What happened in the past week, no one can know. For your sake, and for Charlie’s. If anyone hears that kind of thing, you’ll be wrapped up in a straightjacket tighter than a sausage’s skin.” Mark nodded solemnly. “I understand.” Manny nodded as well. “Good. Now, take a seat. I’ll help you fill all this out.”  
It took a bit of time filling out the transfer papers, but when Mark finished, shaking his old manager’s hand and thanking him for everything, he found Charlotte waiting for him outside the door. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, but it was much sadder. It was then that she held up her hand and the bright pink slip of paper, which he immediately recognized. “Oh no, Charlie…” She shrugged her unharmed shoulder. She fought for me, but didn’t fight for herself? “I’m so sorry, Charlotte.” She just shook her head. “Don’t be. It was bound to happen because of a night guard anyways.” But he wasn’t convinced. “No, Charlie, I’m _really sorry_. I should never have gotten you involved… If I’d have known…” The look that crossed her face was a familiar one. “Stop. It’s fine. I knew what I was getting myself into. Sorta.” That made him laugh a little. “And let me tell you, it’s been one of the most interesting weeks of my life, hands down.” He laughed more. “I’m gonna get some awesome scars out of this-” She motioned to her shoulder. “-And I can’t wait for the PTSD to kick in.” The thought of Charlotte facing that alone made his smile drop.

“So where you off to?” she asked, noticing the look on his face and trying to change the subject. “Not far,” he replied. “Some place with an arcade.” She nodded. “Staying a night guard?” He nodded back. “You realize the second I find out where you’re getting transferred to I’m going to come and bug you every day, right?” The both of them laughed. “Like, you’re never going to get rid of me now.” The thought of a life without Charlotte was a surprisingly boring one. “I hope you do,” he responded, scooping her into his arm and hugging her tightly. A squeak of pain escaped her and he pulled away, concern in his eyes. The look on his face made her giggle. “But first, take me to a hospital?” Her tone, a sweet mix between biting and faux-flirty, made him laugh.  
Gingerly wrapping her uninjured arm around his waist, she helped him half-limp-half-walk out of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria, letting the gold-painted double doors close behind them.


	12. Epilouge - Five Months Later

**EPILOUGE – FIVE MONTHS LATER**

At four in the afternoon on a Saturday, it was loud and crowded inside of Freddy Fazbear’s Arcade and Pizzeria. He, thankfully, didn’t have to deal with the children or parents. He was just the security guard, watching over the tablet screen dutifully from inside a brightly-lit back office. But when the familiar ring of his phone echoed through the office, he put the device to sleep and answered it, knowing who it was. With a smile, he greeted, “Hey Charlie.”  
“Hey, Mark.”  
Over the past five months, Charlotte and Mark had grown incredibly close. After being fired from the original Freddy Fazbear’s and finding a new job at the diner they had become partners in, she had taken to calling him weekly to ensure that he was doing okay at the new location. She had also insisted that once a month they have breakfast together at the same diner, cups of coffee served to them by Walt in their booth, and talk about what happened over the course of their last week. It was more to remind each other that it was real, and they weren’t crazy, and the scars they sported weren’t in vain.

“How’s everything at the new place?” she asked, her usual first question. “It’s good,” he replied easily, sitting back in his chair and looking up at the wall covered in childrens’ drawings. “Quiet. The scariest thing I have to deal with is angry suburban white moms.” The both of them laughed. “Yeah. I’ve had my fair share of those too,” she responded. “How about you? How’s the diner treating you? And how’s Walt?” There was a sigh on her end. “He’s good. I’m not bad. Tired. Have I mentioned lately that I hate the general public?” They laughed again. Charlotte constantly told him stories about unruly customers, many of which landed him laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. With that, she launched into a short story about her most recent altercation, one that left her without a tip and a note on the receipt telling her to smile more. “I’m too old to be told to ‘smile more’ by creepy guys!” she said, only laughing out of disbelief that it even happened. “We’re gonna have to have breakfast soon. You gotta tell me the full story,” he told her, smiling wide. “Definitely. Walt asks about you all the time now,” she told him, the smile audible in her voice. “Really?” The fact that the old man had taken such a liking to him made him smile. “Oh yeah. Always wants to know the next time you’re coming in for breakfast.” Thankfully, Charlotte and Walt weren’t far from his new location. Maybe I’ll go in and surprise them soon. “I’ll stop by sometime then. I’ve been kinda wanting to go say hi to Manny too.” There was a pause. “You didn’t hear?” she asked, curiosity mixed with guilt. “They closed the place down not too long ago. Management finally came in and gave Manny the eviction notice.” He was at a temporary loss for words. “Oh. Wow, uhm, no, I didn’t know. Thanks for telling me.” She hummed; the thought of the old Freddy Fazbear’s slowly descending upon both of them. _I wonder what’s gonna happen to the place. And what’re they gonna do with the animatronics?_  
“So,” Charlotte prompted. “Anything happen with you recently?” He had to think about it for a moment. “Well, my manager’s been talking about us getting a new stage show for the past couple weeks.” Mark’s new manager was a very nice woman, a mother of three named Jessie. “We’re expecting that to come in today.” His new location was three times as big as the old restaurant, with several rooms meant just for birthday parties, a room of games to play and win tickets in, and a room lined wall-to-wall with prizes and merchandise. He didn’t quite know where they could fit a whole new show in, but he had come to learn to trust upper management when it came to things like that. “That’s pretty cool. Do you know what the show’s gonna be about?” In all honesty, he knew next to nothing about the show or what was coming in today. All he knew was that he was supposed to supervise the exporting of the pieces and props. “Not a clue. But the stages I think we’re using for it are pretty big, so I don’t doubt it’ll be cool for the kids.”

There was a knock at the door behind him. “Oh, hey, I gotta go, okay?” He stood up from his seat. “No problem. I’ll text you about breakfast?” He nodded. “Yeah. Definitely. Talk to you later?” He could hear the smile in her voice again. “Talk to you later.” The line disconnected; he stuffed his phone in his back pocket and sped to the door. Turning the knob, he opened it to reveal his manager, smile friendly and excited. “Shipment’s here.” Her obvious excitement was infectious, making him want to skip out to the back of the restaurant as he followed her.  
As they walked through the service entrance in one of the empty rooms toward the back of the restaurant, they were faced with the brightness of early evening, the sky a brilliant shade of orange. In front of the exit that they walked out of was a large white moving truck, five workers dressed in blue overalls and white shirts unloading crates. As his manager walked to an official-looking man, he couldn’t help but ask her, “So what is all this?” Jessie began signing papers on the clipboard she was handed. “We’re gonna be doing a couple new shows on the stage, and making Kids’ Corner more interactive. These are all the decorations and set pieces.” Mark looked at the crates being unloaded, curious as to why some were so tall but some were wide. “What’s the show gonna be on?” She glanced at him, smiling a little at his curiosity. When Jessie finished signing for everything, she walked over to a crate and waved him over. Getting excited again, he walked over to her side, looking down at the wooden box. “I’ll give you a sneak peek.” She popped open the crate’s lid and pushed it off, letting it hit the ground and lean up against the edge.  
Mark’s face paled, his blood running cold.  
Inside was the unmistakable head of Freddy Fazbear.


End file.
